Building a sustainable community that avoids group-think and embraces cultural evolution.

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Having thought about the dynamics at play regarding Atheismplus over the weekend, I figured I would try and crystallise my ideas into a general guide for creating as inclusive a community* as possible, one that guards against group-think and facilitates both internal (community) and external (social) cultural evolution. It would be utterly contradictory and hypocritical for me to view this guide as anything other than one person's thoughts, an embryonic seed at best, but it does represent the kind of community I am waiting to emerge before I would consider committing myself again. I can only assume that I am not the only one.

Should those people leading the momentum behind Atheismplus wish to heed any of this advice I'd be more than happy for them to take it. If not, I care not. I do not expect this vision to materialise suddenly in its full form anyhow; I'm not naive enough to think there are not, in all likelihood, several evolutionary steps still to play through before that were to happen. If Atheismplus wants to go a different route, then that is entirely their choice to make. I only hope that emotions cool soon and we can actually get down to some serious inter-community discourse.

First of all I want to share a few structural and cultural components that I believe are necessary to create and maintain a sustainable community. Although I have written this with Atheismplus in mind, I think many, if not all, of the points are likely to be applicable to most communities that eek to be more than simply an interest group. As I've said previously, I hold no political allegiance one way or the other, so I wouldn't be surprised if those who identify as either left or right both find objections or concerns regarding these ideas. After that, I want to share a few ideas for some shared culture that embraces the principles I've laid out, shared culture that does not run the risk of centralising the community or facilitating group-think.

Structural components of a sustainable community:

• The community structure should be as horizontal as possible. Either you could limit this community to being an autonomous part of a wider community, or else seek to found an affiliation, or federation, of groups, individuals and organisations that together strive to cross-promote each others work and collaborate as much as possible. Either way, such cross-promotion should be used to maintain a conscious balance in the diversity of discourse, both in terms of subject and of authorship.
• The functions and duties of positions of authority should be as transparent and, where applicable, as crowd-sourced as possible, across all scales organisation.
• Revolving positions of authority can promote greater diversity, both within the affiliated groups of the community and in any overarching administrative structures, of which their should be as few as possible (a media contact point, promotion and awareness, political lobbying, an open-source arbitration process etc).
• An agreement should exist on the assumption that nobody speaks for anyone else but themselves, unless speaking as a representative with a consensual mandate, on whatever scale. So simple (yet so staggering common in this debate), but just because individual A said X, does not mean that all others who affiliate under the same moniker as A also believe X, nor that it is official policy of the group unless otherwise stated (and even then one should treat it with caution unless there is evidence of a consensus process having been implemented. Individual A could easily be speaking from an emotional state and proclaiming personal, assumed belief and not fact, thereby absolving affiliated others of assumed belief in X).
• Whether crowd-sourced community guidelines are created for the community as a whole or by individual groups and organisations themselves, they are vital to possess along with mechanisms for grievances to be heard (prior to any incident that threatens to get out of hand). My personal preference is for a 90% or so approval benchmark for acceptance of a guideline or procedural process; this represents a strong mandate that even those who get ideas voted down should be able to accept, yet flexible enough to avoid bloc-voting tactics (it would be interesting to see if there were any studies on the levels of voluntary acquiescence to consensus at various levels). It is important to have a set of guidelines with a sufficient enough mandate to act as an objective framework that everyone can have confidence in appealing to. I've had experience in this regard (anecdotal, I admit) and the impression that it was an absolutely crucial component was apparent almost immediately.
• With these guidelines, moderators should have an agreed mandate to use whatever powers they have been given, by consensus, to ensure that guidelines are followed. Some issues may be destined to end in flame war, at least at first; for these, all you need is somewhere to park it, away from the main message boards where with luck it will die a slow death. If not, people are free to ignore it. For persistent offenders you shouldn't be scared to suspend or revoke accounts. It's not a free-speech issue; nobody is stopping them spewing shit on Twitter or anywhere else, its just the consensus-derived authority of a group of people choosing to stop you metaphorically stalking them and screaming in their face 24/7.

Cultural components required for a sustainable community:

• We must all completely flip the way we view critical critique, and those who would offer it, from the instinctively defensive and unconstructive assumption of conflict to an acknowledgement of what is in fact a compliment: someone has deemed your views worthy of time-spent constructing a rebuttal. Obviously this can and is achieved already everyday, though usually with issues that do not have unaddressed ideological belief, however small and subconscious, as their foundations. Those issues remain compartmentalised from our skeptical environment and, it seems to me, from our skeptical way of thinking (I speak here simply from my own experience, and not just about trolls). We need to collectively recognise these unspoken biases and apply the same level of critical thought (and respect) to all issues equally. A lot of lapses and biting of lips will be involved, I'm sure, but there is always “sorry”.
• We need to create a culture that openly celebrates the best Devil's advocates out there. After all, to be a good Devil's advocate one needs to go all out in researching and trying to understand the rationales for what they may personally see as unsavory arguments and beliefs. We can't expect to have constructive debates (either for the inherent advance of knowledge or the for the perception of the audience) with sceptics or fundamentalists who do not share with us an objective framework for debate; a culture that promotes the playing of Devil's advocate in a constructive way is an alternative way to guard against the emergence of group-think.
• The written word has its uses, obviously but it's shit for tackling social issues where advocates are often all to willing to insert whatever tone of voice or choice of interpretation is needed in order to validate pre-existing unexplored or unfounded beliefs. If we revive the Socratic tradition, actually utilise video technology to present crowd-sourced debates and arguments, we could take it to a whole new level. I'm sure that Socrates would be ribbing Plato hard now were they to know about Twitter, but there is no reason that we cannot harness the best bits of both direct debate and text.
• There can be no taboos. I'm serious on this one, but it's gonna be tricky. It might be that some issues are so fresh or vulgar that time would be needed to develop the culture a bit first, get some training in as it were, before it starts to do more good than harm. But ultimately, everything that is out there in this sometimes beautiful, sometimes seemingly FUBAR world is best understood through critical, skeptical thought. It's just something we will need to deal with as it comes, and all try to (for want of a softer, less evocative word) self-police the community.
• On 'self-policing', it would ideally be a natural consequence of the redefinition of how we see criticism, encouraging a culture of challenging each others views. It will mean learning to control instinctive, defensive tendencies at first, given the lack of critical discourse to date within our present communities on social issues. The best way to do this in my view is to have a code of conduct for debate (something we should already be using i.e. awareness of fallacies, respect etc), something we all subscribe, and hold each other, to. Furthermore, this will help us enter into debates and discussions in a constructive manner, under the assumption that everyone is coming from the same place, not in terms of views and issues, but in terms of method.
• This is the central strand that runs through all of this advice: If you wish to have a sustainable community, it must be built through a shared culture of methodology, not a shared culture of content. This is the only way to avoid group-think, facilitate cultural evolution and be seen to be just the most damned reasonable and unobjectionable community the world has ever seen.

Here are some ideas that embody these principles, examples of shared culture that would both bind and challenge us as a community:

1. A wiki for collating scientific evidence on social justice issues – It should be completely open to all, but moderated in the manner described above (very important), with room for debate on each entry. Entries could be tagged for filtering and debate purposes – tags should include, at a minimum, indicators of study quality (whether it is blinded, has a large sample group, area of funding etc), the appearance of objections with further room for debate, and the theme of the study. It wont matter how people approach adding entries, so long as it is sufficiently and effectively moderated by enough users. For the sake of being a user-friendly resource, as well as responsive to cultural evolution, the front page could consist of portals for the top ten or so issues voted up and down on a daily basis (obviously measures would need to be in place to ensure it doesn't become victim to foul play). I don't know if such a resource exists already (I have no time to research this blog as well as write it) but it would be a really useful resource to have to congregate around. It would also be a great media resource, should they find the inclination to actually start quoting evidence. If things get out of hand then folk could always turn to idea number three..

2. Podcast, or preferably video-based production, for promoting diversity and quality debate – One or two regulars artful in the ways of the devils advocate play host to a different group or person each week, providing a constructive counter-balance to controversial and emotive issues. It would need to be meticulous in it's approach, crowd-sourcing opinion in advance of each episode. Evidence likely to be drawn upon for the debate would be compiled by each side in advance and available to the public. In order to act as an exemplar that the wider community would find constructive, it might be useful to mirror the structure of the debates on idea number three..

3. Debate Arena – I've a feeling this sort of thing exists, but building one from scratch would give the element of community ownership and consensual design necessary to gain credibility. It could be cross-referenced with the wiki for contestants to draw upon evidence, with debates advertised in advance for research and audience awareness. Contestants could tag other people into the debate, either sourced in advance or drawn from the audience, should the debate require different expertise to advance. People could vote as the debate goes where they think points or arguments have been won, contribute to visualisations that show which way, and to what extent, a consensus is evolving and have the ability to award kudos points to people who uphold their debating standards under pressure. Participants would begin with their own interpretation of the context of the debate, before embarking on a series of 2 minute rounds (though this should be flexible on agreement, according to requirements). A maximum of one correction of a rebuttal, one rebuttal of your own and one argument to advance the debate allowed per round, to really allow for granular exploration of issues and avoid it simply becoming noise. Victory is declared if the crowd consensus reaches a certain level and remains there for two further rounds (a three strikes and you're out policy). Losers could of course seek a rematch, giving plenty of time to perfect your next material. With such a format, I would hope that over time there would emerge people who elevate this style of debate to an art form, applauded for their succinctness, speed of thought and clarity of communication. Debates would be transcribed using voice recognition, as well as being available for stream and download, with the transcript open to editing should errors be spotted. This would allow for easy citing in blogs and further debate. Personally, I would absolutely love to see any debate, interactive or otherwise, between DJ Grothe and Brian Dunning on whether skepticism is actually applicable to politics. I respect the work of both of them but I cannot ignore the possibility that two such prominent voices seem content, publicly at least, in knowing that they entirely disagree on an issue that should be regarded as a fundamental aspect of what skepticism actually is. That's just my opinion, but I'd be more than happy to debate it.
   
   EDIT: Another idea for how the debate might be won - The synthesis ending. Basically, the audience can participate by buzzing in and proposing a synthesis answer to the debate. Either contestant can opt to agree with the synthesis proposal, and if the proposal gains consensus level within the crowd, the first of the contestants to have agreed wins the battle.

As I said, I'm not telling anyone to do anything, merely presenting my own ideal version of community in the hope that some people might see, understand and adopt some of my ideas. That's even the last I'm going to write on the matter. Between work and the baby, we've got too much on at the present for me to contribute further to the discussion on Atheismplus. Beyond replying to comments here and the odd tweet, I shall remove myself now and wish you all good luck.

* I have used 'community' as shorthand for what Benedict Anderson called the 'imagined community', different to a geographical community (of which I say nothing) in its scope and number.

An attempt at being constructive regarding this whole #FTBullies thing

The purpose of this blog is to try and offer a hopefully new and constructive perspective to the increasingly bitter debate currently ongoing within the skeptical/atheist community. I am a relative newcomer to this issue having only caught up with it over the last few days; I'm hoping my relatively outside view might be of some value to someone. First though, a little context is needed to try and minimise the seemingly inevitable (potentially from both sides), knee-jerk, distinctly un-skeptical responses that may ensue.

I've considered myself a skeptic for many years. I hold to no pre-packaged political viewpoint. I like to think that I take each issue as it comes, listening to logical arguments on both sides and trying to form an opinion for myself based on the evidence available. Yet I know as well as any that not I nor anybody is infallible, and so if you find reason to disagree all that I ask is that you reply with evidence, logic and respect in a manner befitting the term skeptic. Straw is for horses.

This is my first blog for nearly a year. During that time I have been feeling somewhat adrift, for reasons that may colour my perception of what is going on (consider this a disclosure). Last year, in the wake of the rise of Occupy, I sought to debate politics with my fellow skeptics. In return, I got insults, strawmen, prevarications, and the kind of trollish behaviour we usually criticise our opponents of. On the one hand I had Brian Dunning claiming that politics couldn't be assessed skeptically because it was 'value-based', while on the other hand I had DJ Grothe proclaiming the exact opposite. It suddenly occurred to me that all one needed to do to break the skeptical consensus on organised religion was to ditch the metaphysical stuff and call it politics. The realisation that within our community, beyond religion, alternative medicine and claims of the supernatural lay ideologies as deeply entrenched as any that we seek to counter was a shockingly painful one.

Anyone who believes that the skeptical community possesses a rational quality that puts it above such things as ideology, ignorance and “pointless” schisms, as I once did, are simply being naïve. Don't get me wrong, we are in good company; the vast majority of intellectual thinkers since the enlightenment have made the same, relativistic mistake. But I'm not writing this to point fingers, cast blame and root for one team over another. It isn't constructive in an environment such as this. My area of interest lies in networks and power relations, and their relationship with culture and cultural evolution. So, in order to try and explain this in as objective a manner as possible, I shall try to stick to that framework to briefly explain why I think this situation is for the best.

The basis for any community is shared culture. How that culture is produced, disseminated and consumed determines the social power structures that emerge. At one end of the spectrum we have the cult, a strictly top-down model of cultural creation and dissemination, resulting in a group of individuals bound tightly together by virtue of having consumed an all-but-identical shared culture. At the other end we have something like the skeptical community; a far more networked collection of (often grass-roots) affiliated organisations and individuals. Furthermore, thanks to the internet we have developed this community largely through a democratised meritocracy of cultural production, something that has allowed people of independent minds to create bonds without the need for a centrally-derived shared culture.

However, there is another kind of power dynamic that hasn't been addressed by this unprecedented (in scale and rate of iteration anyhow) model of community. Within any growing community, there will always be a relative disparity of power between those that have risen to positions of authority and influence, often the 'veterans', and those that are either primarily consuming or else simply new to the scene. As the creators of the overwhelming majority of the communities universally shared culture, these influential people. to a large extent, determine the discourse and, as good skeptics should, they primarily discuss that which they know: alternative medicine, religion, pseudoscience etc. However, it is my opinion that as well as being a handy rule to keep in mind when embarking on a debate, limiting oneself in this way can also be used to justify ignoring issues that fall outside of those established within the shared culture, and/or conflict with one's concepts and beliefs derived from other spaces entirely, outside of the skeptical community (family, local 'real-life' community values etc). This creates a naturally emerging, unsystematic top-down element in the creation of our shared culture and, as a result, there is a group-think dynamic at play that is far more ingrained in some than others. This is where the split lies in my view. We have a group of people that can see the elephants in the room, people who's values from other communities cannot be so easily compartmentalised-away and who cannot, for whatever reason, maintain the self-censorship/denial necessary to maintain this veneer of complete unity. And, as with every community that has ever come before us, we also have a group that denigrates such up-starts as trouble-makers and upsetters of the natural order.

Oh the irony.

The important thing is the veneer has been stripped away. Now should be the time for all the major-players to face up to the fact that there are fundamental aspects of skepticism that have yet to be addressed. On this, you would all come to us as equals. It is simply ridiculous to say that politics and social issues are not the realm of skepticism; that may be the desire of those that wish to maintain the illusion, but discourse and method will emerge soon whether you like it or not. Social science may not be as empirical, but that doesn't mean the answer is to simply ignore social issues or, worse yet, to seemingly actively discourage its discussion to a sometimes obsessive degree. Only through the influential people openly discussing these issues sensibly, skeptically (no more ad-hominems, no more strawmen, no more disrespect), and with no taboos, can we hope to sustain this community in a way that can act as an effective force for good. Create and systematise tools to facilitate this communities evolution, or die (metaphorically speaking, of course). This is what must be done if you want to try and keep this movement together, though in my heart-of-hearts I doubt if it is either possible nor even desirable. If one thing has come out of this for me, it is a feeling of confirmation that this movement, like all before it, does not have what it takes to be truly unprecedented. While the wider societies in which we all live continue to propagate radically different, largely segregated cultural concepts, we cannot expect to maintain a community through simply ignoring it. If that's what you want, call it a club.

This has gone on long enough. In my own personal opinion, if you cannot resist partaking in this runaway tit-for-tat behaviour, launching strawmen and ad-hominem attacks, gleefully interpreting emotional and distressed individual statements as representative for an entire group (and this goes to both sides), then you do not deserve to call yourselves skeptics. As you might have guessed, and for the reasons I described in the beginning, I find my sympathies lying with those that want more from a community than possibly the most ironic case of group-think likely to have ever existed, those that cannot separate their skepticism and their social conscience Therefore I offer them some, in my opinion, much needed advice, should they desire it.

• Do not simply make the same mistake again and think for one moment that this time the community is going to be perfect. We are all the product of a shit system, and we all bring issues because from it. Reinforcing an us-versus-them narrative merely takes you along a well-trodden path to a place you don't want to be.
  
  
• If the energy and enthusiasm is genuinely there then you do have an opportunity to create something special. The world of politics in all its forms is crying out for skeptical discourse.
  
  
• This should probably be titled rule number one, two and three: beware your own hidden ideologies and confirmation biases. Actually put in effort at self-reflection, mainstream and systematise it into forums and debates and discourse. Learn about facilitation and conflict-resolution. Skepticism and social issues has a bad track-record; don't be complacent and assume that it won't be you next. 
  
  
• Also importantly, apologise for errors, things said in the heat of the moment, strawmen and the like. Try and develop a shared culture of meticulous debate etiquette: if the group-think and underlying ideologies of those shouting loudest are as deeply held as I suspect, then it isn't them that you are appealing to . It is that majority that primarily consume that are the most reachable. I genuinely think that on the larger issues you guys have the moral high ground. Make sure you act like it.
  
  
• If you want to be truly unprecedented, there is a good rule of thumb to keep in mind (the simplest there is, in my view). Facilitate cultural evolution. This means creating discourse to find ways to systematise checks and balances against group-think and the development of dogma: always actively seek greater diversity; if in a position of high influence, accept the role with humility and act primarily as a facilitator, promoting as many voices as possible whilst ensuring one's own voice is not dominating multiple discourses; create an environment where people can be comfortable playing devils advocate (far more constructive for the neutral reader should the current level of debate out there remain so toxic); actively resist attempts to create an us-versus-them culture, a breeding ground for the development of group-think; and do not be afraid to remind and correct those who share your (at present) beliefs when you feel that they are out-of-line or in need of some self-reflection.
  
  UPDATE: There is a good critique by Massimo Pigliucci, with lively comments, to be found here:
  http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/on-with-comment-about-richard-carriers.html 
  Also,
  http://atheistethicist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/atheism-plus-arguments-and-concerns.html
  ... is a reasoned blog by Alonzo Fyfe addressing some of the flawed responses to #atheismplus as well as a critique of the current circumstance.

An open letter to skeptics.

I have been a skeptic for a number of years now. Skeptic's Guide to the Universe hooked me away from any esoteric leanings I might have had in my youth, and since then I've come to see that the rejection of ideology inherent in the community can itself be a uniting factor in a vanguard for evidence-based change. Now however, I am no longer as sure as I once was.

As skeptics, we try to use a set of evidence-based rules to evaluate information. But what do we use to objectively pick which information to evaluate in the first place? I'm sure many would reply that aim of skepticism's public face is to try and educate others and counter some of the many falsehoods that have the potential to cause suffering. Huge amounts of energy have gone into tackling Power Balance bracelets, anti-vaccers, climate-change deniers, homeopaths... any number of people that abuse reason and science. Well, I put it to you that if you really care about miss-information causing suffering on a massive scale, we have one massive elephant in the room.

The Neoliberal capitalist system the majority of us live under is founded upon false premises that have absolutely no evidence to back them up. Where else would we countenance such power on the scientific basis of a couple of slightly intuitive but evidentially lacking phrases (trickle-down, rising boats etc)? It causes misery to billions. We are real, society is real, the economic system is real... surely that's all we need to be skeptical? Where are the guests at TAM speaking out about the falsehoods inherent in the Neoliberal economic model, or their views on human nature? Is politics off the table, and if so why?

Scientific consensus is adequate to assure that the skeptical community trusts scientists regarding climate change. Why then do we patently ignore the consensus regarding the relative nature of the human mind? Both are conclusions born from complex systems. Both have deniers yet we go for the crack-pot and not the powerful. Have we all lost sight of what is most important in life? How else to explain the silence while a psuedo-scientific ideology structures societies in ways that are completely counter to what the consensus suggests makes humans happy.

Any other pseudo-scientific, profit-driven endeavour that caused this much suffering would be brought up all the time, on multiple podcasts and proportionately represented at TAM. Glancing through The Amazing Meeting line-up from London, I see one person, a blogger Greta Christina, who has politics among their interests. This is just wrong.

I have long thought that the skeptical community will grow and usher in a new age of (actual) rational, ideology-free thought. But the ideology-less taking on the BIG skeptical issue of our times are not the skeptics but the people of the Occupy Movement. Their courage to speak truth to power while rejecting ideology has made me question why the skeptical community seem content to tackle the little fish. As a community we have to discuss this glaring blind-spot and ask, honestly, why it is there. I sincerely hope that it is not to avoid controversy. If you don't feel like me, then all I ask is that the next time someone asks why you do what you do, just consider saying "mainly it's because I don't like the direct affront to the science I care about" instead.

Because people ARE suffering, and if we do not challenge this ideology and reverse this explosion of inequality, the science says it's only going to get worse if nothing is done to reverse this trend toward greater inequality.

I'm struggling to reconcile this now I've thought about it. Would sincerely live to hear your thoughts.

Yours sincerely

Ben King

If you would like to read more on why Neoliberalism is the new organised religion, here's my take on it.

What we need to learn from future robots on Mars... and Bees

On this weeks ever-excellent Skeptics Guide to the Universe, I heard tell of a possible future plan for exploring the surface of Mars. Rather than use a single rover, the idea is to use a swarm of robots that will spread out from the landing spot, search a wide area and then return to upload and share data and presumably recharge. Each robot would have searched for the same list of pre-defined information and used common measuring techniques so that when the data is shared, a consensus can be reached as to the value of each robots findings.  Should a particularly interesting spot have been found, a larger group could go to analyse in more depth, or perhaps nothing of interest was found and the search could continued elsewhere.

The inspiration for the idea came from bees. It is the same process that is involved in looking for a new place to start a hive.  Each bee will scout before reporting its findings back to the hive, which will then come to a collective decision.  In each case, consensus is possible because each individual is part of the same shared reality, which is in turn interpreted the same way, according to the same rules. So what the hell is it that robots and bees have that humans don't?! Well, the question actually needs to read, "What do we humans have that these bees and robots don't?"

Here's a thought experiment (I will use the robots for the comparison, since the concepts are more familiar to us, being tools of our creation, than the inner-workings of a bees brain): Clearly the robots represent a highly simplified model of what our society actually represents.  To make analogy true therefore, we would need robots that were looking for different things, with different measuring devices, and different concepts of what information was of most importance. Furthermore, instead of each robots having an equal voice, a small percentage of the robots spoke for all the others, thereby ensuring that all but a few of the observations were ignored and consensus remains an impossibility.

We humans do not all share the same software; we are not the Borg. Indeed, geographical separation alone has ensured radically different coneptions of what has value and how to measure that value, simply by virtue of the natural environment one inhabits. On top of that, more abstract separations have further undermined the unity of our judgement: Religion, race, sex, gender, wealth, even being ginger for crying out loud; All of these things and a thousand more have ensured that we are far from the robot ideal in terms of reaching consensus. All of these things I have mentioned, together they form culture, the software, our imagined community, our political identity.  It is thousands of years of top-down cultural (bio-political as Micahel Hardt and Antonio Negri call it) production, shaping our identities, passing from generation to generation; religious, nationalistic, commercial. It is what we believe, where we live, what we do... that is what we have that bees and robots do not.  That is what gets in the way of us sharing an understanding our reality, the same shared reality that makes consensus possible in bees and robots. 

Notice above that I blame top-down cultural production for our woes? Top-down production of our identities is, by definition, synonymous with political power, not in the strict 'state' defintion but political in terms of the power to govern peoples lives in any form. This includes the religious and commercial as well. Each time communication structures have progressed, the political structure has been forced to evolve, open-up, in a constant struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed. Yet always the oppressors had the power of identity creation, thereby ensuring that whenever the tension did finally break, the oppressed would, like an abused child, know nothing other than retribution-in-kind.  This no longer holds.  The internet is ushering in a new dawn of democratised cultural production, horizontally-derived identity that can, in all but a few countries, ignore all of the boundaries that stop us from reaching consensus (Anonyminity being the extreme conclusion).  Note here the I'm not saying that the Web is some sort of ready-made utpoia; all I am saying is that is can allow you to ignore those boundaries and that, since kids enjoying the internet have in many cases not yet internalised prejudice and ignorance quite yet, it can innoculate the young from the prejudice filled fear-politics used by their apparent elders.  Unfortunately, evolution is slow, condemning the Internets early years to cultural production whose authors were still very much of the top-down identity.

Another criticism would be that I am arguing for us to literally become the Borg, something that is further reinforced by the fact that I'm totally up for transhumanism. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Robots and bees have one primary function.  We do not; we have and should cherish our subjectivity. Consensus need only be reached in political arenas, in areas of societal organisation that has the power to impose identity upon us. We must work toward a complete split of past culture and politics, a counterintuitive notion yet only so to that part of us that has been directly formed from hundreds of years of top-down political identity.  To put it a less counterintuitive way: Do we want the fundamentalist religious, nationalistic or capitalistic ideologies of the few to determine the organisation of all of society? For all of past identity is the creation of the few, ensuring that public policy is determined by religious ideas thousand of years old, 18th Century political philosophy and institutions or wealth grabbing corporations fresh from the 19th century.  The alternative is to allow reality, evidence, to guide us, to recognise our own flaws and the insignificance of the individual, to harness, trust and give equal voice to all of the swarm.  If we were to work toward that then, far from becoming a mindless bee, you would become free in all the other areas of your life to be more than simply an indictrinated robot.  All that is being asked is that in political arenas, where people make decisions that are imposed upon others (whether willingly or not), that those decision makers leave their personal past, their personal judgement, their concept of right or wrong at the door, and allow the evidence to dictate the end results.  This could not fail to be more humanitarian, since all of the evidence points to us all being one system.

None of us should trust our own judgement.  We must all recognise our own pejudices, reflect on the perhaps instinctive rejection of the idea of splitting our known-culture and politics. Even our physiology works against us, showing patterns that aren't there, showing us a limited confabulation of reality. Slowly we are coming to realise these things, something epitomised by the exploding growth of the skeptic movement. Consensus is possible in science, precisely because it understood very early on that culture was an impediment to truth and thus attempted to filter out its effects. It has advanced tremendously, a testament to our ability to work together toward understanding ourselves and our environment. It is by defintion a step-by-step process evolution; but we are beginning to walk the right way.

A Sociocultural Evolutionary View of Skepticism; Its Origin and Function.

I am going to give a talk on my theory of sociocultural evolution and how it applies to skepticism at our next Skeptics in the Pub meeting. As preparation I thought I would write a blog on the topic to try to flesh out my ideas.  Bare in mind, I have to take it right back to the beginning of civilisation and back again, but skepticism does appear eventually...


In the beginning there was instinct ;), and the abstract had yet to exist. Foresight and memory evolved alongside social living and created the first shared abstract notion of identity emerging from our knowledge of the world and our place within it.  Imagined communities did not exist beyond what was immediate, the 'other' incorporating everybody not of ones own nomadic tribal group.  Shared experience was limited to geographical space since communication was limited to speech, story and song.  As I see it, a few simple evolutionary maxims, once the domain of instinctive genetics but now rationalised by early humans through newly developed cognitive abilities into a cultural form, ensured the emergence of human civilisation:

1) Fear the unknown - The new and different is potentially a threat.  When applied to humans this would include cultural factors since such a difference would suggest genetic difference i.e from a  rival nomadic group, due to the limited extent of communication networks.

2) Do not waste energy fearing the known - The familiar can only become familiar if it hasn't already killed you. This is seen in various forms of habitualisation, and when applied to other humans would also include cultural familiarity since this would highly correspond to genetic similarity.

3) Defer to authority - Whether it is something akin to Blackmores imitate the best imitators, or simply an evolution from animalistic strength hierarchies, Authority has since the dawn of power structures been synonymous with exclusive knowledge/cultural production

4) Just as the brain constantly strives to rationalise our physical world, so too the brain strives to rationalise our cultural world.  Really, there is no clear distinction since both combine to make up our environment.

Then technology started.  Agriculture brought with it geographical stability and the concept of belonging to a certain area.  Power dynamics, once limited to shamans and the like within individual groups, began to grow along with the resources now available: overabundance of food, increased leisure time and specialisation leading to new weapons.  Instead of ruling a nomadic group, those first individuals to claim superiority now found it possible to rule over more than one group within a geographical locale.  The imposition of abstract knowledge (initially religion, understandable rationalisations given the lack of knowledge) from the exclusive few could now find form in art, artifacts, story, song etc which means, according to the above maxims, that enough common culture was produced and consumed by the different peoples to ensure a stable group identity (pretty much the definition of a group) under a common hierarchy. 

All over the world these cultural units formed.  Written language arrived, and with it came exclusive literacy and ability to construct and record abstract concepts.  Culture was either created by or influenced from a monopoly of the few creating the identity of the many, utterly saturating all of society.  Yet technological advance ensured the status-quo could not last.  Ships, mathematics and all manner of advances came from the opening up of these largely closed systems through trade (primarily around the Mediterranean and along land trade routes) creating cultural mixing (and bringing about the end of the Bronze Age).  Now huge empires were possible, encompassing a number of different religious identities. This did not produce for stable times, and as humanity tried to rationalise this state of affairs memes such as secular citizenship flourished. It was in effect the large scale adoption, a scaling-up, of old memes from Classical Greece and other localities that, due to their diversity, had found ways to accommodate such differences.  A new form of imagined community was created, that of the state, and it managed this not by replacing religion but by capturing a niche and constructing for itself a role separate from that of religion: politics.  Religion was relegated merely to matters of the esoteric (and even this was not free from the manipulating intrusion of political memes) and the rest of culture was monopolised by the state.  Once again, this monopolisation led to a permanent suffusion of state-memes within culture, becoming a part of all that came after.  Expanding empires made various degrees of attempts at imposing 'home' culture on plundered lands but in Europe, the close proximity of closed systems of 'others' meant the continual war of states, just as nomadic and religious closed systems fought before that.

This type of transition has happened once more since the emergence of the State.  Once again, technology was the driver.  As science led to revolutions in navigation, weapons, bureaucracy and the like, individuals began to escape the closed system of state's common vernaculars (derived from market forces after the invention of the printing press) and trade internationally.  This fresh autonomy, directly analogous to the Mediterranean traders, led once more to increased dissonance as people saw the actions of the state as counter to their desire to maintain peaceful trade. Multinational imagined communities arose such as traders and academics, the increased mixing leading to massive innovation, something the state needed to tap in order to achieve it's own aims.  Yet the memes of Commerce, those of individual freedom, were more rational than the status-quo of war, propaganda and fear espoused by the State.  Slowly, the States role was sidelined (just as Religion before it) as Commerce became the new producer of cultural, and therefore identity, production.  They had their monopoly, granted in recognition by the State (and fetishised in corporate personhood laws) in its new role as protector of Commerce, as well as in the large, inhibitive cost of production.  In this age of mass-production, imagined identity is formed by the wealthy few who censor and produce according to the narrow interests of state and commerce.  Commerce has become a fundamental identity, the democratic state now restricted to Public Service campaigns and press statements, funnelled to us through the corporate sphere.

Religion is what we believe.  The State is where we live.  Commerce is what we do.  These three monopolies, allowed to suffuse culture with their memes, have between them constructed our cultural environment and our identities.  Yet now we face a technological revolution to put all the others in the shade.  With each previous transition, cultural production has passed to more and more hands, from the Demi-God to Multinational CEO..  Yet it has always remained the foundation of the power dynamic, the exclusive domain of the few who rule over the multitude that are cast in their image.  These past transitions of imagined community have been quantitative revolutions only.  The Internet (presaged by universal education) has democratised cultural production and made it global; A truly qualitative revolution in the creation of imagined communities  Dissonance is once more rising as the communication network outstrips the reach of either religion, state or commerce.  Their 'official' imagined community narrative, based upon a now false notion of exclusivity and exploitation of the 'other', is now at odds with what we have come to understand for ourselves.  Yet this is misleading as I will come to soon... a better description would be to say that our selves are now produced by, and so now morally includes, the multitude itself: horizontally derived, global, democratising, open system (there is no one else that can be the closed-out 'other')  A new global identity is being formed based upon information, a basis which includes everybody regardless of belief, habitat or profession.  In the words of this Syrian journalist, "A real revolution is nothing like what we were taught about in our school books. No military coups, no revenge, no political bloodshed in the name of the revolution. Tunis first, then Egypt. I watched how young men and women declared their refusal of the reality that had been forced on them (my italics)

This is where skepticism comes in (finally).  The reason that we can form a universal imagined community is because we have universal commonalities.  Not only are we physically similar but we also share familiar real communities; we are all mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, we all need to eat and we all need to rationalise our existence.  This last point is key.  Because we all share the same reality, the scientific method reaches the same conclusions for everyone, creating a universal commonality based upon legitimate, agreed consensus (including agreed upon provisos, distinguishing it from dogma).  This creates an attractor, truth if you will, that objectivises creation of shared identity and thus insulates it from manipulation of the few, the powerful.  Updated: It's kind of analogous to Entropy in regard to time, in that the same false beliefs are far less likely to spontaneously appear the world over than an the ever more rational interpretation that is the scientific consensus, based as it is on a reality independent of subjectivity.  In terms of individual rationalisation, false beliefs demand a complex, specific, amalgamation of different memes in just the right order, with defense against dissonance, for the overall belief to hold up.  There are many different false possibilities, but only one consensus that attempts to describe reality objectively.  There is an asymetric drive towards belief in the rational, determined by our inate need to reason and our acumulating knowledge of the world; eventually objective reasoning will replace superstition.  I like the idea of skeptical thinking being analogous to high entropy, fits with the notion of broad, disparate knowledge as opposed to localised, low entropy dogma. The attractor chips away at this structure leaving only that which requires no dogma whatsoever, the ever-changing world of science.  

Up until now, science has retained, due to a need for trust, an exclusive network within which it works.  So long as cultural production via the scientific method remained exclusive, it remained alien and unknown to many of the multitude, resulting in the state and commerces ability to ring fence it for their own use.  This has limited the ability of science to influence the social sphere, since it was still produced by exclusive culture (even exclusive language), for exclusive groups. The Internet and open information memes are chipping at this closed structure, trying to open it up, something that I think is central to the aims of skepticism.

Skepticism can be to the social what the scientific method is to the physical.  Both seek to objectify thinking and behaviour by attempting to identify and work around our human limitations, both biological and psychological (or cultural, i.e. accumulated knowledge. The terms are to me largely interchangeable though psychological would also account for the effect of genetics too).  Objective knowledge of our world has reached a point whereby different people, applying skepticism, can come to universal conclusions of abstract notions (morality, ethics etc) in the social sphere (as the scientific method does for the physical world).  Previous forms of meta-subjectivity created for us by the few, the foundations of exclusive imagined identities, are mere constructs designed to maintain the status-quo; institutionalised culture rationalised (communicated down) in such terms as paternal (religion), duty (state, social contract) or theories of economics-as-freedom (commerce).  We must reject these dogmas, for that is what they are, and objectivize the subjective through the objectification of thought (applying skeptical rules).

This is what skepticism does.  It facilitates the emergence of a common identity through the universal acceptance (within the group) of agreed upon rules that are designed, from our objective knowledge of science, to recognise and mitigate our own mental flaws and biases.  These rules demand that we all recognise and mitigate those parts of our identity that are exclusive, that have come from an undemocratic sphere of cultural production, and instead accept the evidence of our shared reality.

This attractor of truth that is independent of humanity is a revolutionary concept when you consider its correlation with technology.  Hegel always imagined History as the story of mankind coming to know itself, but I think he underestimated the next step, getting to know each other.  So long as capitalism continues to connect people the dissonance will grow.  Yet the powerful, those purveyors of ideology, have come to believe their own dogma... how else do you rationalise greed so one is able to sleep soundly and be a good family man?  This makes them dangerous.  They have created a global gated community, inoculating themselves from the darker externalities their wealth accumulation demands.  Yet even they inhabit the self same world as the multitude and it remains to be seen how high the pull of the attractor can reach.  Each transition of imagined identity has brought with it increased reliance on the cooperation of the people and as the latter of the three, commerce can, reluctantly, change when forced to by the expanding moral spheres/communication structures of its consumers.  That those with the most to lose and of the most immoral nature (oil, weapons, finance) are the ones to have used their wealth to subvert the state, the supposed representatives of the very people that now exceed them in moral capacity, is not a coincidence.  They will be the last bastions of imposed identity, the most fundamentalist of opponents against the emerging global identity.

Everyone will always have reality in common.  This fact must not be allowed to be taken from us by the extreme post-modernists who represent the social equivalent to pseudo-scientists.  To endow validity to individual 'realities' is to erect walls where there need not be any.  Celebrating subjectivity is not the exclusive domain of those who deny a shared objective truth.  If it were so, we would be doomed to the constant threat of manipulation as we continue to allow belief to be a valid criteria for defining authority to which we are subservient.  We have tried that, indeed we have tried nothing else.  While it may have been moral according to the limited definition granted by limited communication technology in the past, it was still the cause of much pain and suffering as dissonance, caused by the attractor, began to contradict those belief systems.  The only way for us to reach a globally just and fair society is to base that society on universal commonalities of reality as it really is.  The public realm must be free from the ideologies of religion, state and commerce and be replaced with institutions that emerge from the complex network of independent minds.  The multitude must be allowed to communicate, to create global culture that eliminates the 'other' and renders the identities of the oppressors obsolete.

No longer will we be defined by what we believe, where we live or what we do.  We will be recognised for our unique set of knowledge and the social value that contributes.  In short, we will go from objectified subjectivity of the soul, to the subjectivised objectivity of a complex network.  We are a system, and a system is defined by the number of links, by relationships, more than by individual nodes. Ironically, we once knew that, as indigenous people do, but we didn't understand it.  That's why it all got a bit crazy for a few thousand years.  Now we are beginning to understand it, we are replicating that understanding in culture because it seems the most rational interpretation and eventually people will be able to grow in an environment where there is enough understanding that we can once again come to know what it is to be part of a system, both human and, inseparably, ecological. We can only know such things when we are allowed to live it, understanding clearly isn't enough.  As such, I predict that skepticism will grow to become a fundamental part of this new, information based, global identity and will eventually lead to the eradication of enforced, indoctrinated, false subjectivity to a true subjectivity whereby an individual is free to express themselves as they truly feel themselves to be, not as a call-centre worker from Hull who wishes she had the time and money to learn violin.

Thanks to @Mikeharris100 for his input!

The NHS directory of absolute nuttiness, sorry, 'alternative therapies'.

Oh boy!  One of my fellow sceptics pointed me in the direction of this list of alternative medicine practitioners on an NHS trust website!  As if it wasn't bad enough that they were spending £4m per year on homeopathy, this list legitimises some pretty mental practices, a few of which I've never even heard of.  Let me give you a couple of examples:

Bowen Therapy

Developed in the 1950’s in Australia by Tom Bowen, Bowen therapy is a gentle, relaxing, holistic and non-invasive energy vibrational therapy that operates on the muscle, nerve and connective tissue systems.

Non-invasive energy vibrational therapy?  That doesn't even make sense!  It's just a jumble of woo-woo buzz words strung together into some incoherent non-sentance!

Thought Field Therapy

TFT has also undergone considerable “field testing” in the most challenging of situations. In October 2001, for example, Dr. Shkelzen Syla, Chief of Staff with authority over all medical decisions in Kosova, officially adopted TFT as the treatment of choice for those with PTSD in the region. This followed a 100% successful supervised clinical trial.

It is important to state that the procedures do not work on everyone nor for every problem. However, research has indicated that in excess of 75% of individuals undergoing TFT can expect to obtain the enduring resolution they seek.

Brilliant! Works 75% of the time, EVERY TIME! Poor old Kosovo, as if they haven't had enough to worry about.  I not that there are no links to the trials, oh well.

Ayurveda

The 'science of life', Ayurveda, is firmly embedded in Indian philosophy and its theory of evolution, according to which the universe is composed of five basic elements, namely: ether, air, fire, water and earth. These are present in all things, and in the human body they manifest as doshas.     

So has nobody told them that Aristotle was wrong?

Shiatsu

Developed by the Japanese over 2000 years ago from the medical practices that originated in China, shiatsu is designed to promote the free flow of the vital energy known as Ki through the meridians of the body. 

Shiaaat.. the free flow of vital energy.  That old chestnut.  And people struggle to understand these things as cultural artifacts from ignorant times?  Seriously, scientists used to be cookoo too back in the 17th century... if any of the pre-modern belief system were true, they would have discovered it!

Unfortunately, 'flower therapy' doesn't have any description, but I'm guessing it's this, from Wikipedia:  Bach flower remedies are dilutions of flower material developed by Edward Bach, an English physician and homeopath (surprise surprise)

Anyhow, I thought an email was required to clear up some questions so I shot this off to admin@nhsdirectory.org....

Dear Sir/Madam,

Regarding your NHS Directory of Complementary and Alternative Practitioners.  I was writing to confirm that none of my tax money is being spent on 'Thought Field Therapy' or 'Flower Therapy' or 'Dowsing'!?  Sorry, but that last one, isn't that trying to find water with a stick?

Why are you giving legitimacy to such nonsense under the trusted NHS name?  Do you have any criteria at all that would make you think twice before legitimising a practice with a place on your website?  Seriously, could I come up with absolutely anything, make a website and drop you an email and you would put it up there on your list of practitioners?

People who need therapy are often the most vulnerable people in society.  You should not be giving legitimacy to anybody who has an active imagination and no scientific grasp of reality, no matter how well-intentioned they are.  For one, it may stop people seeking help that will actually do some good.  Secondly, it is immoral to present something as beneficial when it is no better than placebo (if you can find studies that are controlled and double-blinded for any of these I would be more than happy to include that in my blog...).  Thirdly, by legitimising such practices you perpetuate the unhelpful dichotomy of belief vs science and leave people vulnerable to other, less well-intentioned people who use the same language and concepts but for no reason other than scamming people out of money.

They are all scams.  That many people belief in them and are well intentioned is beside the point.  Please assure me that no tax payers money is being spent on this nonsense.  If you would like to respond to my blog, I would welcome your comments at www.grimeandreason.blogspot.com

All the best,

Ben 

As ever, I'll keep you posted on any reply.

Update:

I have had a reply from the admin for the NHS directory.  Thankfully no public money has been spent on compiling the directory, although worryingly it is designed as a directory for those willing to work with the NHS in the future, should GP's make that decision.  Given that there are more than a couple of GP's who believe in the effects of Homeopathy that isn't terribly reassuring.  What is more worrying is that this directory was compiled in response to the findings of the House of Lords scientific and technical committee.  I am presuming therefore that either the committee wasn't very scietific, or else the NHS Trust Association ignored it's findings and helped facilitate the possible cooperation of services deemed pointless by the committee.

Here is the reply in full:

Dear Mr. King,

We refer to your email of the 10th November regarding the above.

The Directory was published in response to the findings of the House of Lords scientific and technical committee, which published a report on complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM) in 2000 and how such therapies might be provided by the NHS. The therapies included are based on those referred to in the House of Lords Report, which included flower therapy and dowsing.  Information regarding the therapies is provided by those organisations which represent the individual therapies in question.  The Directory is intended to provide information to healthcare professionals on practitioners that have a particular commitment to working with the NHS should they be asked to do so.  The decision to provide CAM via the NHS remains a matter for the clinical judgement of individual patients GP's.  

Please note that the NHSTA does not receive any public money whatsoever and not a single penny of tax payers money has been spent in the production of this Directory.

Yours sincerely,

NHSTA Admin Department

Annoyingly, the report is only viewable if you subscribe to a journal (damn it!) which stops me from checking their conclusion myself.  So, given the conundrum highlighted above, I have replied thus:

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I have a question that is bugging me.  You say that the directory is in response to the findings of the House of Lords scientific and technical committee.  I assume therefore that the inclusion of these therapies, mentioned as they are in the committees report, means that the committee did not discuss the efficacy or evidence for these therapies as part of the report?

I am presuming that either the committee wasn't very scientific in it's aims and methods, or else the NHS Trust Association ignored it's findings and helped facilitate the possible cooperation of services deemed pointless and inefficable by the committee?  I would be grateful if you could comment on this.

I find it worrying that this directory is available for GP's guidance.  Just because someone is willing to cooperate with the NHS doesn't mean we should let them.  GP's are human too, as the minority support for homeopathy shows. 

Yours sincerely

Ben King