Strategic Consolidation

We have come to a critical turning point in the development of our meta-systems framework. There is not point in beating around the proverbial "Bush" on key issues in relation to the framework or the larger world in which it is situated. The overall direction of the development of our framework has taken has been towards increasing consolidation of all areas at the highest levels of of design and strategic implementation. Working the system at the top precludes loss and inefficiency at the bottom. Of course, it is not always simple or straight-forward to plan or prepare things in a manner that will yield results in the structure of the long run or the large. Working on a thread-bare budget has on one hand been a major obstacle, especially in the jaundiced eyes of others. At the same time, in somewhat secret fashion, it has proven a blessing in disguise--as is well put: Necessity is the mother of invention.

I have managed over the last two years especially to achieve a fairly high, and what I would consider to be a comparatively sophisticated, level of development of the meta-system framework, overall, as a whole and self-contained system, as well as in all of its main areas and many sub-areas. I have articulated the entire framework effectively down to the fifth level of its structure, and have resolved at each level what I would consider to be the primary problem of the information bottle-neck and "complexity" explosion that each newly emergent level, initially unorganized, entails. Just the same, all this effort would come to naught if the next step of carrying the system out in an extensive and meaningful manner could not be realized, especially in a corporate institutional sense.

Without further ado, then, what am I talking about. It is the conjunction of a number of issues at one place and one time. At some point, in the general "stepping out" process, there must be a "facing" at least half-way to the realities and limitations of the larger world. The realities are a world that upon many levels has built-in structural and social biases to developmental alternation and change. It is a world that seems to become increasingly stratified and preoccupied with the kind of power that derives from organizational hierarchy and asymmetry of social relations. In many respects these biases are only increasing and becoming worse. Social prejudices in all forms can be thought of as reinforcing built-in patterns of asymmetrical bias, and these serve in general the conservative status quo of what can be considered increasingly to be patterns reinforcing uni-lineal fossil-fuel based development. 

Alternative development that depends upon the adoption and adaptation of applied systems relies foremost upon human development and the development of human organizational frameworks that will mobilize human resources and focus these efforts to the achievement of common or coordinate goals. This in turn can only come, however imperfectly, through the aggregation and consolidation of critical resources (primarily money) that will structurally reinforce such social development.

Of course, these issues were known all along. Efforts last year at this time to "step out" primarily by means of recruitment of people into the framework on some level or another, consistently failed and resulted in substantial losses to the system--certainly it was money that could have been much better spent in other areas than wasted on unreliable individuals who only know how to take and give nothing back in return. This has served to reinforce the realization that American society and culture in a contemporaneous sense at least is not conducive, if not completely antagonistic, to alternative development. There are of course many reasons for this prevailing trend in our world, many of which are political, many social and religious and many economic. Any effort at this juncture to bring a web-based framework to realization at the wrong level and in the wrong way will not be well met and will instead be marginalized and resisted, sometimes even in a persecutory and deliberate sense. This goes beyond the mere forms of fraud and exploitation that are commonly found and increasingly associated with web-based development.

Omniprise.net was constructed as a front-end framework that was implicit to the foundation meta-system. Omniprise.net as a self-contained framework is supposed to represent and be this corporate institutional framework that is the consequence primarily of web-development efforts. So far, it is not that, and it is not likely to become that in any short order. Of course, this framework as a secondary system superimposed upon the prior Lewis Works framework is still in its gestation and embryonic period of development. 

There are inevitable political issues that must be confronted and successfully negotiated in the larger world if this framework is to succeed in any real way. About eleven months ago I was solicited by an individual in Nepal for use of the framework for developmental work conducted there. I was open to the possibilities and provided initial feedback and a tentative proposal that seemed coordinate at least ostensibly and superficially. Background research into Nepal revealed an interesting set of challenges, complex in many respects to say the least. It revealed first and foremost a situation that was highly volatile and politically unstable. I conjecture that mainland China has a hand in conducting covert operations with the aim of destabilizing the Nepalese government, possibly for purposes of eventually incorporating Nepal into its expansive sphere of border control. The project I proposed did not get off the ground, for a number of reasons, but primarily due to a failure of communication and a failure of mutual understanding about what could be expected and what could be reasonably accomplished, and the means and time-table for doing so. Beyond this, it is very difficult to build bridges of true inter-human trust and reliability via the web, and I think this sense of distrust is mutual. I predicted eleven months ago an increasingly unstable political atmosphere, even if my Nepalese counterpart at the time was encouraging me to the contrary.

The upshot of this digression by example is not to say that the Nepalese program failed because of the web. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the project. The project failed primarily for external reasons intrinsic to the Nepalese context, and to a lack of collective will power that might be realized or organized via the web for addressing some of its primary development concerns. Under these conditions, even if a large sum of money had been devoted nine months ago or subsequently to seeing the project through on the ground, it would still have failed and only resulted in a large loss and wastage of what amounts to being precious and very finite strategic resources. I invoke this example for a couple of related reasons. First, the meta-systems framework represents a viable and potentially realistic and productive framework for promoting and implementing alternative development in the world, and secondly, large scale and long term strategic concerns of this framework will not be served by the compromise of the integrity or the potential of the system to what amount to self-serving and somewhat hypocritical interests that are prevalent in the world and that are tied to prevailing developmental directions. Furthermore, it is vital that in the course of implementation of any project, the full context and range of factors that impact development should be taken into account as much as possible, and never dismissed or "written off" as "just a part of the background."

Future development of the framework will hinge unavoidably upon political and larger structural development issues. The resolution of political issues, and potential conflict, will occur upon multiple levels. This past year I've met many of these issues head-on and somewhat naively without previous anticipation or expectation that such issues were even relevant to what I was doing. These concerns are more than just about publishing controversial commentary in Blogs. They extend to the very foundations of our existential being in the contemporary world. 

The approach to the problems of power in the world must be done carefully, judiciously and boldly. One must balance caution with the promise and pay-off of seizing the day. Though each incident may lead to loss, if there is something learned by it, then in the long run that loss can be turned to gain. There remains hope therefore, even for contexts like Nepal next to the Chinese Cyclops, that a better world can yet be realized for all people.