A social structure destined to fulfill needs
What is a social structure that doesn’t have any of the problems that present-era social structures have?
Throughout different stages of my life, I have sought the solution to this 6 times, each time plugging in all the societies I know of. And each time, one structure showed up at the end of each computing session.
I think I didn’t miss anything. I feel barely over the confidence threshold to write about this. I’m now writing about this.
The structure looks like this:
There are three groups of people.
- Group A express what they wish for but do not have.
^ optimally, this information is made public.- Group B aggregate the needs expressed by A to be more digestible by Group C.
^ optimally, this information is made public.- Group C fulfill the needs of Group A by reading the output from Group B.
That’s it.
You may call the three groups of people User, Processor and Fulfillment, or Citizens, Bookkeepers and Service Providers. The names are different in each culture.
Analysis
So, I’ve found this social structure by brute forcing through all the social structures I can think of. I am kind of confident that it will work.
Still, what is it?
Hmm… it is a social structure that can decide on public policy. It also looks like a market. It does not require its citizens to have a basic understand of politics; in fact, it does not even care about the concept of citizenship.
Who are the three groups?
- Group A can be “whoever lives there”.
- Group B can be sociologists like me or NLP algorithms. For this structure to be optimal, it’s important to not have a centralized voice here.
- Group C can be a government or civilians. I don’t care, as long as the needs of Group A are solved efficiently and quickly.
On the market side, you can make this a one- or two-sided market that aggregates all markets into one. The difference between a government or a market under this structure mainly lies in how Group C gets paid by Group A.
Implementation Details
On Group A
I have observed that humans are the most willing to express their needs in temples, churches and other religious buildings. Whatever the reason may be for these weirdly shaped houses to have the power to make people share their secrets, we will need support from those buildings in order to make this social structure a reality.
A little bit of lore on this
During the COVID19 pandemic, I have looked at the notes people put in a Catholic church; I think they call these notes “prayers” or something. Other than the few wishes for material goods, a good job and good grades, the notes were about wishing for good health of their families and friends. If this is a good indicator on how the population feels, then, whoever lives there - the society - should dedicate 80% of the spare resources to the eradication of SARS-CoV-2.
This is not what I observed. The commercial market has completely glossed over the people’s wish to be healthy.
A market does not have to behave this way.
Alternatively, educate everyone that expressing their desires is not a shameful thing to do. This takes time, though. We may not have time.
Potentially, use a hashtag on social media for their desires to be recorded in the database.
There are infinite ways you can make people share their needs voluntarily. Please try as many ways you can afford to.
On Anonymization: different cultures have different balances between privacy and the need to be heard. Ultimately, it should be up to each respondent to choose if they want to include their name, they original writing in the report made by Group B or not. Yeah, I just called them “respondents” while they are sharing their thoughts voluntarily. Here, “user” is definitely a better term than “respondent”.
On Group B
One rule of thumb: data should be open to interpretation.
The input for this step should be in writing.
Throw people of every background at the task to see what they think.
Throw whatever adaptive algorithms currently alive at the task. Might be interesting to see what they come up with.
The diversity and independence of their thoughts on this will be important.
The output of this step should be in writing.
On Group C
We need to directly connect Group C with Group A, but how?
Again, there are infinitely many ways you can do this.
One idea is to have a billboard full of analysis from Group B, and another billboard full of advertisements with contact information from Group C referencing what’s on the previous billboard. Then, Group A can contact Group C directly to solve their needs. Yes, in this case, Group A has to remember what they have asked for. I know. Remembering things is truly a hard thing to do, so at least give they a copy of what they sent in.
Another idea is to have Group A leave their contact information on whatever they send in. Then, members of Group C can select a need they want to fulfill, query for members of Group A who has that need, select a few at random to test out the solution. Yes, the solution can be a product, or it can be public policy. There is a rigorous way to test the solution’s effectiveness. Although RCT may be overkill in some cases, please make sure that you can actually tell if the solution has made things better or worse.
Why make Group C contact Group A directly? Well, have you worked with computer networks? More hops = more latency + more packet loss. Same for people, except people are way slower. In the COVID case, if it takes a month to implement the first solution, people die.
The Theme
Well, the theme is obviously “try everything all at once” and “efficiency”. If there is enough labor to try everything all at once, then try everything all at once and see what works.
This social structure has one pillar: Communication. We couldn’t have built this structure before the information era. We can build it now.
Actually Implementing It
The logical next step for this thing is to field it. I’ll think something up.
If you want to try this out, you can start by connecting the three groups of people together and telling them about this plan. Then, do it. Make sure Group B and Group C get compensated for their work.
If you haven’t noticed, this social structure is non-invasive. It can act as the main policy-making machine or be its own market. It can work under a government or connect existing markets together. It can work under planned economy. You can, and you must configure this structure to fit the society that it will be in.
That’s about it. See you around when one is built.
Oh, I forgot. The name. Well, it doesn’t have a name. You get to pick a name for it to fit your marketing requirements. If a negative poll tax gets to be marketed as “income”, you can name the structure Social ABC however you want. Remember, the structure is important, not the name.
Practical concerns
++ 2024-08-14
All those reports should be publish in uniform type face and text size, with the author’s name put to the very end or removed. If anyone want to follow a particular author, they will have to go through the author’s website. Unlike public speaking, written records are less likely to stir unwarranted emotions.