The Infostate: imagining our digital future

In my previous more than a decade old post 'infostate and the colour of money' , I envisioned future states as social networks with their own 'local currency' or digital currency (dc). Now, as we witness further ai based advancement of technology, it's time to expand upon this concept.

An Infostate is a digital ecosystem that combines social networks, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and user data & asset ownership and management under a unifying identity.

• Identity: i.e. the ethos, infostate constitution and AI alignment are enshrined in the ‘iDNA’ of the infostate and implemented through the infostate’s own immutable blockchain. 

• The iDNA can only be changed through the democratic means of the users and then only within the rules defined in the initial launch iDNA. If the iDNA of a given infostate is too closed on outset, that infostate will die off.

• Reproduction: Infostates can breed, new conceptual iDNA can be created and tested within an infostate through its own sub communities, also iDNA threads from different infostates can be combined and tested to create ‘child’ variant communities that are all incubated by the parent infostate.

• Compute: The infostate manages all compute resources (AI, CPU & data) via outsourced 3rd party Information Service Providers or ISP’s that link through the validation process of the blockchain and get payment via the infostates own digital currency.

• AI alignment, Data sovereignty and user state: A user or an entire team or community working with an AI, can generate a vast amount of data. Both the alignment of the AI, along with the users ability to retain sovereignty and privacy of their work is critical in the future economy of infostates. Provided everything is created within the remit of the IDNA, the infostate AI can support all aspects of this process.

• Timelines: Future predictive possibility timelines are always generated on an individual and collective level and ordered from most probably to least. The Complete Set Timeline or full list of timelines is called the CST.  

• The Most Probable Timeline or MPT is a useful timeline and is the primary of the CST . All timelines will for example utilize one's private economic, social or physical health. The societal impact of having this info always to hand is not to be underestimated.

• Depending on the probabilities, the CST or just the MPT of a sub community or the entire infostate is a matter of import for all affected.

• AI allows citizens to explore potential consequences of their choices, both individually and collectively.  Individuals & Sub-communities can experiment with variants of their Timelines discovering key future turning points and effectors that matter so they can plan and design an effective future.

• When required, Sub-communities can even experiment with variants of the constitution and governance models allowing for safe exploration of alternative structures and gradual, informed evolution of the infostate's core principles. This combined with the breeding from above to create new ‘child’ community versions that are passed into the timeline viewer and experienced as test futures.

Evolution from Traditional States

The infostate represents a significant evolution from traditional forms of governance but I believe one that is inevitable.

The infostate offers a more adaptive and participatory governance system, allowing for rapid responses to changing circumstances while maintaining core values.

The infostate unifies all this with the digital information assets of a society and all is managed through a unified coherent blockchain linked AI. 

What we have today as governments are faltering centralized bureaucracies working in a disharmonious way with globalized tech giants and financial institutions that seek to externalize and socialize costs. The waste in the old system is as vast as the profits of the shareholders of those companies. This old system combined with unacountable and unelected AI frameworks to which so much data is being passed into is not a future I believe our society wants.  

Many of the core components of the infostate are already here. The next steps will be the emergence of crypto DAO based distributed AI engines. What governance systems are linked into these is going to be key. Again, much useful work has already been done here on a number of existing chains. I’m excited to use one of the future implementations.

Rocks Spikes and Rails

For physical training, as well as chi gung and internal martial arts training, I have always liked to do some resistance training. Normally I do a mix of body weight workout (which I often combine with a more physical yoga set) and some weights like kettle bells, (I enjoy swinging them around and keeping my body springy and all connected).

Recently I found a new type of very hardcore resistance and cardio workout. Moving big rocks.

I started learning about rocks from Steven Stone, a great Scottish rock man who is also a well trained wrestler. He got me into the physical sport aspect of the thing.

Of course you need something to do with them or its all a bit pointless. I would not have taken it much further than building nice walls, steps and the stone circle (using the nicer stones we find)], until recently when I was researching natural building options to live in (such as yurts or other eco homes).

I found that the cost of buying one of these eco-structures, relative to what you actually get, did not make sense to me. So I decided to see if I could build a livable space from stuff that was just lying around or growing out of the ground, and figure out how practical it actually was.

From living in a yurt, I liked the idea of circular living spaces, I also enjoy how you really feel all the nature around you because of the thin walls. But I have also like living in mud buildings because of the unique feeling and the heat retention of the mud walls.. So I wanted to come up with something modular, but that could be built optionally either way. Added to this I wanted a design where could plug these round spaces together with other round spaces, allowing you to choose the type of round 'feeling' you wanted in each room.

I also wanted something that could be made out of components and taken down again relatively easily without any leaving any impact on the land.

Instead of thinking of a house as walls and making rooms inside it, I thought of making various rooms, with the same basic structural components, but with the option of using different materials within this structure to create the feeling you liked. These could then be connected with external paths, rope bridges or tunnels. A sort of house where the house is really the nature around you, and the rooms are interconnected spaces that are all part of the nature rather than isolated from it.

Anways, that's the idea I am playing with. So right now to test it all out, I am building two prototype versions, one on stilts up in the trees and one slightly bigger one on the ground.

All of this got me a good reason to move some bigger stones again. I did not want to make any sort of concrete foundation. It feels nasty to do that in the nature here. But I am happy to drop some rocks on the ground in a circle or two.

If you are going to build without concrete, you are either going to have to get physical or have a machine do the heavy lifting for you. I did not want a machine driving around the area where I am putting these things, and its so much more fun to see if you can do it all yourself. The building on stilts is also on a steep hill for added complication, there is no way I could get a digger there even if I wanted to.

Here is a short video of me moving a rock or two and making a foundation.




Rolling some stones down the hill from where they were delivered, then moving them with rails to where the lower space is going to sit. Its about a 50m journey for each stone. Each is a good workout, sometimes i move them in batches.

You have to stay very present moving rocks or these things can break you very easily. Your body alignments have to be spot on when you lift or things in you pop. Also if the stone starts going to wrong way, you need to get out of there. Sometimes they really do have a life of their own… stone respect is a must.

But back to the training, it certainly changes your perspective.. When you live in a city and work on a PC, you work out to keep fit.. now I am discovering that I think the other way round, I need to plan when my body is rested and strong enough to move rocks again.. No longer does it make sense to wear out my body lifting weights when I could be move a rock and getting something real done. Its interesting and fun to have that physical reality based orientation appear in this way in my life.

How A Relationship Can Breathe

I found a feature of relationships that appears to be a sign they are working really well. I call it the breath of the relationship. I discovered that often people don't feel comfortable allowing a relationship to fully breathe and instead prefer to be with a stuck or dead relationship. When there is no breath there is no life, or more realistically, when the breath is limited, the life is limited.

What do I mean here?

For me there is a cycle to how a relationship flows and transforms, developing through phases in a cyclical fashion, each cycle beginning with a birth phase, proceeding with a consolidation and ending with a death phase. After the death, the cycle can restart. If this cycle is allowed to regularly progress through all its stages, then the relationship is alive and exciting, producing positive growth for everyone involved. A dead relationship is one that allows the people involved to stay the same and not grow and develop, so really a dead relationship can only be had by dead people. What I mean by dead people are those who have become numbed to the flow of life that runs through them, this numbness is supported by external stimulations which I call addictions. Addictions provide the numb person more of the ups and downs of the life that has been shut off. Addictions are often drama based, arguments and wars in relationships to me are a form of addiction to replace life (so are real wars for a whole society), and so are drugs, tv, work addiction and internet addictions.

People who want to stay dead (consciously or more often unconsciously) will not want to have a live relationship that breathes and will not be interested in any of this discussion. But for living people I think it is helpful to understand the living dead. Dead people are very attracted to living people, physically, emotionally and energetically. They are attracted and literally want to 'get' the energy of a living person. I believe this is why the vampire story is so prevalent in our culture. We live in a world of the undead, the 'living dead' person. While our society continues to educate kids into numbness, we will have a world full of living dead energy vampires looking for live force to feed on. It’s good to see how death can work next to life, especially if we are healing the dead parts of ourselves.

So how does this breathing work?

Two people meet and there is a strong attractive force between them. This force is created out of a yin yang polarity, the dynamic force of polarity between the intrinsic natures of each person in a couple. This force propels the couple forward in a growth driven motion. This is the birth phase, the fresh and exciting 'shared' discovery of new territory through reflection. (By reflection I mean seeing new/deeper aspects of oneself through experience with another who communicates it in some way, often non verbally).

After some period of time, which can be days, weeks or sometimes even months this territory becomes known and understood, and there is a consolidation period. The reflections are better understood and integrated with the support of the others presence. This consolidation can be wonderful if it is shared consciously, but in my experience it is often not for a key reason. The shared awareness of consolidation in a relationship brings with it the shared awareness of possible ending and this can bring up fear. To me it is this fear of ending that leads to relationship plateau or deadness in the relationship. It is because people fear the death of the relationship that the relationship becomes stuck and dead.

I found three places where I have seen things get stuck for different reasons:

1. Rushing the birth phase. Aiming to get to consolidation way too quickly.
2. Not admitting consolidation. The birth phase was really great and wanting it to just keep going.
3. Avoiding death. Not wanting to face and truly be with each other in the possible ending.

1. Fear of the birth seems to stem from the unknown newness, it is fear of the amount of raw energy that is coming up and moving inside one.  I have noticed this as a constant want to move to a place of security where we know we are 'together'. This security is often established with expected guarantees of in the form of ideas about seeing each other, 'being together' or some monogamy agreement etc.  To me these guarantees are never really what the fear is about deep down; they are simply ways to hide from it. Avoiding this creative birth energy is avoidance of being present in the here and now with someone. At the end of the day it is fear of one’s own sexual energy that drives a rush to 'tone it down' and be safe with someone.  If you are seeing this happening in someone you are relating to I would recommended you stay honest and true to what feels right for you, ie don’t provide any guarantees unless they feel absolutely true for you. If you do to 'make someone feel better' you are already manipulating your life, you have already entered into a lie. Lies are a good way to support deadness in a relationship and in you. More TV comes next.

2. Fear of consolidation I have already covered. I would recommend exploring it in whatever way is true for you. Most importantly keep aware of the hovering spectre of death! If you can talk and share it consciously, it can't move into the unconscious. Make it your friend, learn about it and come to know it as OK. (In fact you don't even need to talk about it if you are super aware of it in yourself, but sometimes it can really help another if they are not used to this level of presence in a relationship. And in any good relationship helping another is simply helping yourself.)

3. Avoiding death. I already covered; this seems to happen by getting stuck in the consolidation phase. How many drama addictions in relationship are really just about this avoidance, creating an energy dynamic to try and feel more alive, while death is creeping in all the time? If one or both of you are brave enough to consolidate consciously and not avoid the natural time for an ending, then death will come, and it can come strong and unpredictably. This death can be the most transformative and rejuvenating time for a relationship if you make it through, but to make it through you both need to be able to be present with the possibility of a real ending of the whole thing. (It can also help to individually clear in the practicalities of how this can happen, money, house living arrangements etc)

Unless you have experienced this directly yourself it’s hard to get across really how it feels. I have sometimes experienced this as often as every week. One moment a powerful wave of everything falling away comes through both of us. Its a bit of a shock sometimes. I call it a letgo, you just have to let go and ride it. I think the key is the ability for both of you to stay fully present with yourself on your own, while you are with the person you love, knowing absolutely it could be over. This can only happen if there is no game, done in truth and honesty of really being with the other, while letting them be free to go. The love and gratitude you can feel for each other often magnifies. Its like a reset button has been hit, let it reset fully in the death of letgo and discover what you both feel on the other side. Its a ride.

There are only two outcomes of this, a good clean ending or an instant new birth phase and the cycle beginning again on a whole new level.

This is the breathing cycle of relationships to me. I keep seeing this cycle in holographic ways in all aspects of life, it is the cycle of life; things come together and then move apart. These cycles happen in all sorts of ways in a relationship, big and small cycles all interweave the hologram, but the features remain the same. Let your own relationships breathe more and I reckon those relationships can be more alive.

The great relationships in my life are the ones where this cycle continues.  With no holding on, how long i don’t know, experienced as a fantastic surprise that a person continues to reappear to me. Well there is often some holding on, but I discover that holding in the consolidation, then grow and  release it as death rides through. I rediscover what was truly always there is me.

Implants And Our Evolution

It is looking fairly clear to me now that as a race we are heading for an interesting split in our evolutionary tree. I think we can predict a few interesting branches in our evolutionary timeline.

I had some fun with this one, but I think it can be quite a divisive subject, and it certainly will have very real political and cultural implications. Really even the discussion about GM food falls under the issue.

Who Wants to be Part Robot  

The first split will be defined on either side by those willing to be implanted with technology devices and those who do not want to be implanted.

This is an easy call right now, as those willing to be implanted is going a close subset of the community that presently spends most of their time plugged into mobile devices. This demographic is already in effect a partial implanted set, on a psychological level. The switch to permanent access for some will be seen as minor, it will be understood as simply an 'upgrade'.

The scifi term for a technically enhanced human is a cyborg, a cybernetic enhanced human. Scifi writers expected coming cyborg races to emerge through technology developments that would be based around physical enhancements, both in the field of medical repair (like the bionic man) and for enhanced performance eg for military means.

It is already clear that the military is skipping the cyborg step and taking the leap to full robotic armies. Robot soldiers are much easier to mass produce and faster to replace with new models, there are none of the issues of biological time for growth and training to deal with. Drones are in live field in many parts of the Middle East today, and two-legged and four-legged robot soldiers are in development to be seen on the battlefield within 5 or so years.

I believe the battlefield itself has been a computer game for a while already. It's only the 'execution on the ground' part that now remains to be fully automated, then the human is made redundant (except as the victim). I think now the most important military technology has become the code used to command and execute a cyber war. It is way more easy to hack into and take control of a robot army than to bother fighting it. Drones and missiles have already been overtaken by hacker groups and will be again. 

But back to us as a race. These developments are already having a massive effect on us. There will be no more jobs in manual labor over the coming few decades. All the talk you hear about unemployment is not going to change, and i expect there is going to be much much more of it. There is simply is no more 'work' at least in the sense of that old school manual stuff, left to do. 

Japan is well on the way to creating a fully robotic sub-class to pick up all the manual labor of their society. China, the world's manufacturing base, is also hot on the trail. While suffering workers shortages, many of the top manufacturing companies have already started aggressively moving to fully robotize their production lines.

"Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturerby revenue, is accelerating its automation drive and could deploy as many robots as workers at its China factories within three years, Guangzhou's 21st Century Economic Report says. "

The US on the other hand is aiming to compete with China taking an interesting tac for creating an even cheaper workforce by allowing prisons to now commercially hire out labor creating a new slavery system.

So us funny humans are left twiddling our thumbs and looking at screens. I am certain at least a chunk of us is going to take the cyborg route, and will upgrade to an implant version of their phone at some point.

NUIs 

Up until recently the cutting edge of computer 'user interfaces' or UI was the graphical user interfaces seen on phones, Apple and Microsoft devices. Graphical UI's (GUI's), originally mouse driven, have recently entered into a phase of rapid evolution, becoming more touch and gesture driven.

Touch interfaces are often augmented with gesture sensitive systems to drive command sets from the user. Taking a further step, technology already exists for both neurologically projecting a graphical image into a human brain, as well as neurologically reading commands from a user brain back into the computer. I call this type of human computer interface a NUI for 'Neurological User Interface'.

I believe NUI's will replace GUI's within the next 10 or so years.

(This technology has already been used, for example in fighter jets being piloted via such neuro connected systems. But these have already become redundant for military use as it is now dumb to put a pilot in a jet, when a jet can be replaced by a fleet of drones controlled by a far more advanced artificial intelligence computer system)

Evolutionary Branching

Technology based evolutionary branching of our society has already started and been detected in heavy computer or smartphone users..

"Use of hand-held technologies, such as mobile phones, GameBoysand computers, has caused a physical mutation in the under-25s, according to new research. The study, carried out in nine cities around the world, shows that the thumbs of the younger generation have overtaken their fingers as the hand's most muscled and dexterous digit."

"If you're over 30, you'll probably press a doorbell with yourindex finger, while anyone under 30 may well use their thumb."

The present set of smartphone junkies is in a full evolutionary shift, with real measurable changes happening right now. But I believe the point where this will kick in at an even greater level is when we start implanting NUI devices. From this point on, different human traits become more important and relevant to an implantee than to a non-implantee, this will strongly drive evolutionary change in different directions for the two branches of humans.

I call call the emerging race of NUI implantees NUIBorgs or just NUIBs.

However, there is a second evolutionary branch, that will overtake the NUIBs, that I find more exciting. The NUIBs will come from heavy use of neuro interface implants, but there is the possibility to interface with technology on a superior level to the neuro based interface. For me the next, more superior wave of technology after NUIs is Psychic or Psy level interfacing, enabling a technology skip of the primitive neural interfaces.

I define the difference between Neuro and Psy based interfaces as how deep the interface goes into ones intent. Neuro interfaces read and write to the areas of the brain relevant to motor or emotional response. Whereas Psy level interfacing goes much deeper to communicate on levels of intent.

Consciousness

Our science is struggling with the concept of non-local consciousness. Up until recently, science thought of consciousness as a 'local' phenomena that only existed 'in' the brain. But science is being assaulted by a barrage of data from diverse fields that all show this view to be inaccurate.

I will leave it to you to explore this, but in summary, it is now fairly clear that the 'neurological brain' is simply a receiving device for consciousness, not the source of consciousness. This opens up the 'technology' sphere to create all manner of devices including consciousness receivers, transponders, reflectors and transformers all of which I believe will come about as we begin to more tangibly grasp the science of consciousness (as opposed to the science of neurology) and put it to work.

At this point the NUIBs will have a potentially competing evolutionary line to theirs that can emerge from the group that are averse to implants. Humans that got neuro systems will have evolved themselves down a branch that can be superseded by the new emerging Psy human branch. Sure it 'may' be possible for NUIBs to shift to Psy based systems but this really depends how far down that evolutionary line they have gone. The main issue I see with the NUIB rout is one of continuing and increased desensitization from the connected requirement to heavy stimuli, eg bigger special effects, stronger sound effects. These take their toll on sensitivity.

Which is for you ?

The fact that consciousness is non-local means that communication can happen at a distance between human and device. No implant required.

I have heard some say this was one of the ancient technologies of Atlantis. I can't confirm that, but I can say from experience that crystals can be effected by consciousness and vice versa.

Also obviously our planet is crystalline in nature, it has a synergistic effect on us and us on it. This means we are on some level in communication with it, something many indigenous cultures are well aware of, as well as many wisdom traditions.

Modern westerners have become pretty numb to nature, but many seem to be able to make the consciousness leap when they take the right chemicals. I don't think you need the chemicals, but they can help some of us remember what is real and that's got to be a good thing.

Maybe you could call it 'evolution' when we get the hang of this, but really its just a new remembering of what we forgot.

Bitcoin and the Greatest Bank Run Ever

As mainstream society learns about Bitcoin and what it offers I seriously think we could be looking at the biggest bank run in human history.  The end of banking as the system of creating and controlling money.

When mainstreamers start to trust the Bitcoin block chain (the anonymous cryptographic peer to peer network that stores the bitcoin transactions) Why would there not be the biggest bank run the world has ever seen ?

Bitcoin has two risks to always be aware of 1. that the protocol could be compromised in some way , and 2. that you could loose your password.

But the longer it stays up, the trust will continue to grow. This trust will reach a point where it surpasses the trust that people have in banks and governments. That is the tipping point I am talking about.

I believe fiat currencies (debt based currencies backed by many governments) are in a slow dying process. I don't think they are a useful or valid concept in our modern world. The more you understand how they truly function, the more I think you would agree with me.

Bitcoin is forcing people to look at how money works. What people find when they look is not so pretty.

Fiat currencies are inflated unpredictably, the process known as debasement. The question is, why would anyone leave their value somewhere where it gets worth less and less over time though the debasement of printing more and more money ?

The answer is that they wont, as soon as they know there is a viable alternative its over.

Also the fact (that many are unaware of) that money in the traditional Fiat system has interest due on it, is an additional form of robbery from the people in the system. I call it a form of robbery as many don't know or understand that their value is being taken from them both by this means and by that of debasement.

Traditionally the only alternative to this Fiat system was gold. But gold can not be traded easily long distance and is heavy and physical, the banks had it their way in history.

I hope its obvious to you in this light that it is only a matter of time before we shift to better systems of value representation as a replacement to the current banking system.

Fiatleak is a fun site that in real time shows the worlds fiat money moving to Bitcoin.

Taking this further, as I covered in my infostate post it is my belief that over a longer period of time 'nations' of the future will be bounded not by borders but by the use of a common crypto currencies. The features of which will embody the policies that people have already agreed on by virtue of choosing those currency 'systems'. No need to vote for one, just start using the features and coin of the 'nation' or nations! that you agree with the thinking on.

Its going to be an exciting few years if this really gets going. As confidence continues drop in the fiat system and continues to grow in block chains,  the point will hit where everyone wants to get their hands on what ever is the leading set of virtual currencies, it will be a world wide phenomenon, not a local country based one.

It wont exactly be fair either.. the people who got in early will have a massive advantage. The present money system is hardly fair in this way either. But I do believe that the ability to choose which crypto currency you use, will over time start to balance this out. Add to this the understanding that wars are fought over the right to impose a currency on a society (because of the covert forms of taxation i covered that this enables), and you will better understand what I mean here.

There are some good alternatives to Bitcoin already appearing, I see these as the beginning pillars of new nations of the world. Here is a good list of next generation currencies by market cap in $ or BTC.

In the meantime I would urge everyone to at least understand how to use some crypto currency and ideally get some. The timing of when you get 'in' is a massive factor on how the new wealth will be distributed.

We are in the beginnings of the transfer of wealth into the new paradigm. One where I believe wars and inequality are much harder to exist simply because the monopoly on creating money (the thing of power that everyone used to fight over) is now gone.

My vulnerability

I am am so happy you are in my life
I feel like a baby wanting
I am so happy to feel you are there
Though I feel frighted and get lost in my fears
I live to share with you my joy
Yet I fall from the light into dark

My heart fills when I still find you there
I'l give you my heart whilst I laugh


...


Over the years I have been very harsh on myself about making mistakes, trying to be perfect in ones own eyes is such a drag, especially if you think you are quite good at it, and then you fall short. I don't want any more trying to be perfect about anything.

Instead I am learning to be perfect in whatever happens. How big can I screw up and be perfect ? Freedom and self love will dance a merry tune.

Internal Arts and Music

Today I filmed some of my training session so I could watch myself to see how my form was coming along.

The lighting was nice so I decided to edit it to some of my piano music.

I am like this bagua video, it fits with the music which always felt a very circular composition to me anyway, playing with the cross fades on the video edit was fun. The music is a part of a piece I wrote called 'someday'. One day I hope to do a high quality recording of the whole piece. On the technical side the circle walking is not properly grounded, so I need to redo that when I can keep the energy right down.



There was about 18 minutes of circle walking I edited down to 4 mins..

And for some weird movements, here is a 4x time sped-up version of me doing a short set of Gods Playing In The Clouds. There are some funny expressions popping out of me. There are two sections where I dropped it back to real speed so you could see the actual motion, but it took way too long to show more at that speed.