Post by Walkabout on Jun 28, 2012 12:11:06 GMT -5
The GA Remodel
CIRCUMVENTING DERP AND TOP-HEAVY LOGISTICS PROCESS IN GA.
whywalkabout.blogspot.com/2012/06/ga-remodel.html#comment-form
This is an open discussion on how to circumvent the top heavy logistics process in GA. While the working group model and affinity group model has gone some ways to alleviating the pressure, little outreach and action has taken place. Please feel free to add to the discussion in the comments section, here's the first sally from Not Me.
There are comments at the bottom of this initial proposal post. Please read through the comments and ring in where you feel it is appropriate. Several other posts will be generated out of this and linked back to this GA remodel post. If necessary, I will generate a page for this conversation.
Okay, this is so not pre-typed, and probably a bit rambly (?probably?) but the basic idea is this: the internet sucks for real-life actions, it reminds me of Machiavelli's words on whether it's better to be loved or feared (man is fickle, ..., and whenever the danger is far theyre close by, etc etc).
Plus you end up with such a geographically diverse group that its almost self-defeating unless you're willing to foot the bill to fly a bunch of people around who arent motivated enough to fly themselves. So, good in some areas, bad for anything real.
Past that, it's a matter of studying how those who have come before us have tackled this-- both the legitimate and illegitimate ones and utilizing what we can and disregarding what we can't or don't agree with, et cetera. I agree that producing the curriculum online in the beginning makes sense, because well its a free way to bootstrap and make sure stuff is happening before anyone gets committed and it gives you content when you do hit the streets so to speak. However, I think trying to keep things there is fundamentally a wrong model.
In its base, ideally you want little scientology centers/madrassa's/etc all over the place, something that is open to anyone with the nerve to walk in and say hi. At that point you're wanting to throw them into very generic curriculum that educates but is also focused on determining a persons ideaology-- history, economics, religion.. creative writing. The problem here is that you're going to lose a lot of people that think you're full of crap and don't want an english comp 101 class. I'm not sure how to tackle that off-hand.
The entire idea in this phase is to identify people who are on the same page and invite them to do things like help TA classes, clean up the location, et cetera-- in an ever escalating fashion, all no pressure at your will, you get to go as deep or as shallow as you want. The cream will rise to the top.
At some certain point, as early as possible actually, you're wanting to group students together into the early stages of cells. You want them based on geography, skill-set, view points, etc. Those who get along and mesh well go together, then you want your cells to all share generic capabilities. You don't need a media team, you need a guy in the cell that knows how to work the internet/coms. So as the patterns in people emerge, you specialize their education towards whatever they're naturally inclined towards-- but a key point being that you're organizing cells around functionality and not causes.
You use the tiered education model to get people in the door and analyze them in a safe and passive setting that doesn't really infringe on them as people. You use volunteering to identify the motivated and those who have the time and ability to actually do stuff, and you elevate them into a higher tier of education and you start trying to group them with people who live and operate within some reasonable distance of each other, then by skill-set and most importantly by need (do we really need 95% hackers? [total bs number])-- each cell should have a basic knowledge of law, technology, mass media, etc so that they can legitimately operate independently. The overarching idea is that eventually, you've got the trust on both ends without having to really try to build it because it came naturally over the progression of the education so to speak.
IMHO they should be setup in a manner where ops are not performed unless the team in its entirety agree's to do it, giving it a horizontal aspect for the most part, however when the op is on there needs to be a strict chain of command, giving it the vertical aspect when its more beneficial.
I mentioned the hacker spaces previously because that's a perfect setting and reduces overhead and risk from actually opening a school itself, think of it as being akin to hosting your webpage on google to ensure you dont get a huge bill from a DDoS. It also undermines what DARPA is trying to do, which is essentially utilize the hackerspaces as the breeding ground for the 21st century spook, so bonus points.
At a bigger picture so to speak, I think the GA and working group model is bad. The GA ends up having to be the executive, legislative and judicial branch and subdivides itself out to the WGs to get work done, and maybe there isn't a working group for purple people who love 14th century french poetry and want to save rabbits, but probably every working group can empathize with the idea of saving rabbits. So in my world, the GA still exists-- its what legitimizes 'us' as a democracy, it has to be open to everyone and has to allow everyone to be heard, but it should really be acting akin to congress or the senate and outlining policy and beliefs, not so much what they mean or how they are realized.
You develop cells of say 15 people or so with X many cells per region, they operate off of policies set by the GA, but absolutely retain the right to say 'no'. Some sort of executive level cell is going to be requisite for determining what the GA policy even means and how to best realize it-- they say we dont like big banks, how do we combat that? infiltrate the bank? modify local laws? etc-- once that plan has been broken down, then it can filter out to the cells most applicable where they decided yes or no essentially until someone is a go or the idea hits the floor and you kick it back to the GA.
At some point, much like everything else, I mean to formalize this out more as it largely grew out of reading about the shadow government from the North Vietnamese and then the PRU groups formed by the CIA as a retaliation, but also to a lesser degree what we're currently seeing in terms of the formation of Al-Qaeda, and the response in Afghanistan with the creation of the ANLP or whatever (drawing a blank on the name of the villagers with guns model)-- searching for 'coin' and 'phoenix program' should yield a bunch of related docs from RAND et al (coin = counter-insurgency).
I don't know if all that made sense or not, but the short of it is follow the CIAs lead, they know what they're doing here, it's just a matter of repeating things in the US with a less sinister intention.
This is the diagram described in the comments below.
Read more: garemodel.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1#ixzz1z6oPWdB3
CIRCUMVENTING DERP AND TOP-HEAVY LOGISTICS PROCESS IN GA.
whywalkabout.blogspot.com/2012/06/ga-remodel.html#comment-form
This is an open discussion on how to circumvent the top heavy logistics process in GA. While the working group model and affinity group model has gone some ways to alleviating the pressure, little outreach and action has taken place. Please feel free to add to the discussion in the comments section, here's the first sally from Not Me.
There are comments at the bottom of this initial proposal post. Please read through the comments and ring in where you feel it is appropriate. Several other posts will be generated out of this and linked back to this GA remodel post. If necessary, I will generate a page for this conversation.
Okay, this is so not pre-typed, and probably a bit rambly (?probably?) but the basic idea is this: the internet sucks for real-life actions, it reminds me of Machiavelli's words on whether it's better to be loved or feared (man is fickle, ..., and whenever the danger is far theyre close by, etc etc).
Plus you end up with such a geographically diverse group that its almost self-defeating unless you're willing to foot the bill to fly a bunch of people around who arent motivated enough to fly themselves. So, good in some areas, bad for anything real.
Past that, it's a matter of studying how those who have come before us have tackled this-- both the legitimate and illegitimate ones and utilizing what we can and disregarding what we can't or don't agree with, et cetera. I agree that producing the curriculum online in the beginning makes sense, because well its a free way to bootstrap and make sure stuff is happening before anyone gets committed and it gives you content when you do hit the streets so to speak. However, I think trying to keep things there is fundamentally a wrong model.
In its base, ideally you want little scientology centers/madrassa's/etc all over the place, something that is open to anyone with the nerve to walk in and say hi. At that point you're wanting to throw them into very generic curriculum that educates but is also focused on determining a persons ideaology-- history, economics, religion.. creative writing. The problem here is that you're going to lose a lot of people that think you're full of crap and don't want an english comp 101 class. I'm not sure how to tackle that off-hand.
The entire idea in this phase is to identify people who are on the same page and invite them to do things like help TA classes, clean up the location, et cetera-- in an ever escalating fashion, all no pressure at your will, you get to go as deep or as shallow as you want. The cream will rise to the top.
At some certain point, as early as possible actually, you're wanting to group students together into the early stages of cells. You want them based on geography, skill-set, view points, etc. Those who get along and mesh well go together, then you want your cells to all share generic capabilities. You don't need a media team, you need a guy in the cell that knows how to work the internet/coms. So as the patterns in people emerge, you specialize their education towards whatever they're naturally inclined towards-- but a key point being that you're organizing cells around functionality and not causes.
You use the tiered education model to get people in the door and analyze them in a safe and passive setting that doesn't really infringe on them as people. You use volunteering to identify the motivated and those who have the time and ability to actually do stuff, and you elevate them into a higher tier of education and you start trying to group them with people who live and operate within some reasonable distance of each other, then by skill-set and most importantly by need (do we really need 95% hackers? [total bs number])-- each cell should have a basic knowledge of law, technology, mass media, etc so that they can legitimately operate independently. The overarching idea is that eventually, you've got the trust on both ends without having to really try to build it because it came naturally over the progression of the education so to speak.
IMHO they should be setup in a manner where ops are not performed unless the team in its entirety agree's to do it, giving it a horizontal aspect for the most part, however when the op is on there needs to be a strict chain of command, giving it the vertical aspect when its more beneficial.
I mentioned the hacker spaces previously because that's a perfect setting and reduces overhead and risk from actually opening a school itself, think of it as being akin to hosting your webpage on google to ensure you dont get a huge bill from a DDoS. It also undermines what DARPA is trying to do, which is essentially utilize the hackerspaces as the breeding ground for the 21st century spook, so bonus points.
At a bigger picture so to speak, I think the GA and working group model is bad. The GA ends up having to be the executive, legislative and judicial branch and subdivides itself out to the WGs to get work done, and maybe there isn't a working group for purple people who love 14th century french poetry and want to save rabbits, but probably every working group can empathize with the idea of saving rabbits. So in my world, the GA still exists-- its what legitimizes 'us' as a democracy, it has to be open to everyone and has to allow everyone to be heard, but it should really be acting akin to congress or the senate and outlining policy and beliefs, not so much what they mean or how they are realized.
You develop cells of say 15 people or so with X many cells per region, they operate off of policies set by the GA, but absolutely retain the right to say 'no'. Some sort of executive level cell is going to be requisite for determining what the GA policy even means and how to best realize it-- they say we dont like big banks, how do we combat that? infiltrate the bank? modify local laws? etc-- once that plan has been broken down, then it can filter out to the cells most applicable where they decided yes or no essentially until someone is a go or the idea hits the floor and you kick it back to the GA.
At some point, much like everything else, I mean to formalize this out more as it largely grew out of reading about the shadow government from the North Vietnamese and then the PRU groups formed by the CIA as a retaliation, but also to a lesser degree what we're currently seeing in terms of the formation of Al-Qaeda, and the response in Afghanistan with the creation of the ANLP or whatever (drawing a blank on the name of the villagers with guns model)-- searching for 'coin' and 'phoenix program' should yield a bunch of related docs from RAND et al (coin = counter-insurgency).
I don't know if all that made sense or not, but the short of it is follow the CIAs lead, they know what they're doing here, it's just a matter of repeating things in the US with a less sinister intention.
This is the diagram described in the comments below.
Read more: garemodel.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1#ixzz1z6oPWdB3
Yes, we need the GA to agree on direction. Yes, we need structure & order in carrying them out. Lemme know how I can help. Looking forward to seeing more re:strategy group. Note: one thing I found especially disruptive in OWS was the insistence on inclusiveness regardless of how disruptive & destructive whoever was. Not looking to allow sabotage that easily again, so am thinking we need basic org rules, and have thought re:communication to keep this to a minimum.