Super-Empowered Individuals and 5GW: Heads,Tails, and Edges

On the positive side of the coin is the super-empowerment that defines, for example, the writings of Thomas P. M. Barnett and Thomas L. Friedman. In this sense of the concept, everyone has the potential to be super-empowered.

Yes.

This type of super-empowerment comes from technology and connectivity but essentially from knowledge. Even more precisely, super-empowerment provides the ability to accumulate, disseminate and leverage knowledge. Like a tide that raises all ships, this is the kind of super-empowerment that strengthens societies and creates opportunities. This is expressed as freedom, democracy, capitalism and international trade.

Hmmm…Interesting way of conceiving it, which fills a hole often left by TPMB. Dan and I once found ourselves in debate over the role of democracy in Tom’s vision:

Dan:  “I think you overplay the importance of democracy in Barnett’s system. Barnett is a materialist in the Marxist sense — the economic infrastructure ultimately determines the social superstructure.”

CGW:  “Y’see, Barnett may have recognized the perils of pushing democracy upfront, but behind his loud drumbeat of markets, markets, markets, he may have always been chanting, democracy, democracy, democracy. The question is, has he fooled anyone in the GAP or New Core by beating those drums so loudly?”

More to the point of Arherring’s post:

CGW:  “Actually, I’m beginning to form an argument that neither Barnett nor Bush — nor Americans in general — have adequately conceptualized the intimate relationship between capitalism and democracy.”

Dan:  “A post that adequately conceptualizes the ‘intimate relationship between capitalism and democracy’ would be great reading!”

— so is this consideration of super-empowerment a step in that direction?

This positive super-empowerment empowers others.

Not sure of that, actually. Ideally, perhaps it does; in fact, I think it must empower most although it might not super-empower most. We run into the problem of the relativity of empowerment, and whether a super-increase for some might limit the increase for others even if they are nonetheless also somewhat empowered by whatever changes occur.

These Angry super-empowered individuals also enjoy the benefits of technology and connectivity, but in their hands it is used to cause disruption and destruction, to harm rather than to help.

It is fundamentally a matter of choice. Given equal access to technology, knowledge, and so forth, what will a person do?

Super-Empowered Angry Men usually justify their actions by adhering to a veneer of ideology that excuses them from the consequences of their actions.

Do the Super-Empowered Happy Men sometimes “justify their actions by adhering to a veneer of ideology” that demands they consider “the consequences of their actions”?

This is a question digging at the root of the relationship between the Angry and the Happy within the system. This also may have a connection to the theory of Cheaters & Suckers (Altruists), and who will come out on top in a system with only Cheaters and Suckers.

It may be that Grudgers — in a three-way system — do not bother worrying about the empowerment of others, to give it or take it away, except insofar as those others express, through word or action, an understanding of the Grudgers’ own empowerment and freedom. Question:

If Grudgers are not proactive in creating empowerment for others, but only reactively acquiescent or reactively helpful in establishing greater general empowerment for all, then doesn’t the onus of such establishment by nature fall on others?  If Cheaters do not stand up for others’ right to empowerment and Suckers cannot distinguish relative merits when acknowledging others’ right to empowerment, what will become of a system when that system includes Grudgers who are aware of the Cheaters and Suckers?

The question is important.  Often when considering the original theory of Cheaters, Suckers, and Grudgers, those who use the theory assume that most observations of behavior within the system will be one-on-one and that this one-on-one interaction will lead to an emergent system that is predictable given a known proportionality of the constituent parts — even if, or especially if, the individuals within the system are ignorant of the total proportionality.  That is, the emergent system takes shape merely from the cumulative one-on-one interactivity, and that shape is not much in the minds of the individuals within the system while they are interacting.

A similar style of viewing has recently been exemplified by Shlok Vaidya, when he gave his definition of 5GW:

5GW is what we label the emergent pattern formed by a distributed multitude of empowered individuals acting in concert by acting in their own self interest, without any collaboration.

[“The Wizard And The Invisible Hurricane”, August 1, 2007, emphasis added.]

In human behavior, when thanks to advances in information transmission Cheaters, Suckers, and Grudgers may become observable even though they are at a distance and not directly interacting with the observer, the relationships become much more complex.  Any of these three archetypes may alter course on the basis of mere expectation of future interaction; and this expectation may or may not have a strong basis in fact, given the likelihood that many distant and disparate actors have never come into direct interaction with the observer making his decisions for future activity.

It would seem to me that of the three, Cheaters and Suckers have the easiest time deciding future actions.  The Cheater is going to cheat everyone — a foregone conclusion — and nothing he observes on the horizon need interfere with his general method of operation.  The Sucker is going to forgive everyone beforehand, a decision that is made long before actual interactions occur:  i.e., the Sucker is going to act on the basis of his ideology, come sun or rain. The Cheater may be acting from ideology, if he has developed an understanding of his own operational process consciously, but may well act merely on the basis of long-set orientation unconsciously.  Even the Sucker may have ‘internalized’ his own ideology to the point of having created an orientation which he follows unconsciously.

The Grudger’s calculations are greatly confused by the complexity of the system.  Anyone who has already come into contact with a Grudger provides that Grudger important data for making future decisions relating to interaction with that other, but mysterious strangers observed at a distance suggest mysterious data yet to be acquired.  In a complex and globalizing system, with waves of ramifications emanating from a distance, the Grudger will suspect that he must analyze the influence of distant others about whom he has precious little data — and also, that he must proceed to act, not wait a minute longer, in reaction to distant others, for his own actions may have ramifications against them.  The Grudger may ask, “Do I help to empower them?  What are they already doing to affect my own empowerment?”

The Cheater and the Sucker operate outside of time, in the sense that their orientations remain consistent come what may; but the Grudger is locked in the present (in this complex, globalizing world), always having to shift orientation in order to remain free and empowered.

The basis and form of a Cheater’s freedom and empowerment is his disregard of freedom and empowerment for others.  The basis and form of a Sucker’s empowerment is his preemptive servitude.

The basis and form of a Grudger’s empowerment is his ability to analyze the situation.  In a world of static, he becomes less empowered; and this may be why so many strategists and futurists are now exploring the utility of transparency.

Shlok Vaidya may only see Cheaters and Suckers when he contemplates future dynamics, future emergence.  He linked Arherring’s post in this series with a reiteration of his definition of 5GW:

Herring’s onto my thinking on 5GW as the nonlinear total of the actions of billions of actors

[“Arherring on 5GW”, Aug. 10, 2007.]

Besides the fact that a more accurate statement would be that Shlok is “onto” Arherring’s thought — e.g., Arherring and the founding D5GW contributors have long considered the manipulation of multiple, disparate actors, in multiple domains, to be a principle of 5GW theory; these disparate activities would lead to an emergence of a system shaped by “the nonlinear total of the actions of billions of actors” — Shlok has continued to assume, similar to John Robb, that none of these actors would be cognizant of the system-as-whole or of so many activities of others quite distant from these actors;  in other words, whether Cheaters or Suckers, all people continue to do “their own thing” while the system just “emerges”, and said “emergence” is all 5GW is.

Whereas, said emergence has been happening for all of human history, as the systems have emerged on the basis of self-interested actors doing their self-interested things in relation to one another without understanding and knowledge of how distant and unknown activities would reverberate and have an effect on themselves.  The folks in Europe had no idea a Black Plague was coming.  The folks in Mexico had no idea Europeans were coming; nor, that the invention of gun powder, many years before, would play a role in their future.

Some within each of those systems noticed a little more, having looked out upon the system as a whole, or upon as much of that system as they could see, and contemplated controlling or at least influencing the emergence of the next stage in the development of that system.  Whether Cheaters, Suckers, or Grudgers, these individuals may have sought a super-empowerment that would enable them to shape the system in advantageous ways (according to their individual ideologies, or their ideas of a better world.)  If super-empowerment is relative, we should have no problems isolating individuals within each of these systems who accomplished such grand influence; nonetheless, we may also isolate the limitations of their super-empowerment.

Super-empowered individuals may choose to follow any doctrine they desire: 4GW, Global Guerillaism, socialism, tribalism, terrorism, anarchism or capitalism.

[ibid., Arherring]

The super-empowered Cheater, the super-empowered Sucker, and the super-empowered Grudger:  given the basis and form of empowerment outlined above for each of these (provided, also, that a general empowerment on the basis of technology, connectivity, and knowledge will be the same for all), and given perhaps the intimated if unexpressed limitations on that empowerment for each, what sort of conflict resolution would each seek?

Given static, what becomes of the Grudger’s strategy, what becomes of the Grudger?

And how are these three groups related to xGW theory?

These are some questions I’ll try to address in my next installment of this series.