Marching forward with democracy By Johnny Cash on December 19, 2017 | |
Marching forward with democracy Hello everyone, As you know, our mission together here at empowr is: To empower people by enabling opportunity, hope and influence Lately, most of our features and work lately have been very focused on improving the marketplace and economy – attempting to enable more opportunity. And with the upcoming launch of the empowr cryptocurrency coins, it’s clear that – for most participants -- hope for a better future is increasing. (Stay tuned for cryptocurrency launch announcement at any moment now…
we are just waiting on engineering to give us the word). But what about influence? Today, let’s take a moment to discuss how we might increase the influence of empowr citizens. With the launch of our cryptocurrency coin, it seems like the timing is ripe for empowr citizens to start taking more power… … over the rules and policies that govern the empowr platform, community and economy.
Today, let’s discuss: · -- Pushing power away from empowr (the company) towards its citizens · -- Empowering empowr countries · -- Enabling democracy to flourish in empowr countries · -- Electing empowr’s (the company’s) officials Background and beliefs Before we suggest some significant moves and changes, let’s first see if we can agree with the objectives behind these moves. Perhaps we could summarize the empowr mission statement by simply saying that, together, we’re trying to build a better democracy.
What would make a new democracy better than what’s currently available? We think the following six (6) improvements would make for a better democracy: 1. A democracy where big money doesn’t control the rules and receive most of the economy’s gains… … leaving the people – the 99% -- with less and less. In other words, we’re seeking a better balance between the power of Labor and the power of Capital. Unfortunately, this balance is eroding in many democracies around the world – as the influence of capital over democracies continues to increase, at the expense of labor. Where’s the evidence of this trend? More of the wealth is going to the top 1%... … and the real wages of the other 99% hasn't risen in decades. Today, the top 8 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom half of humanity. Finding a balance between LABOR and CAPITAL As you may know, Mission Points are empowr’s way of measuring and tracking value brought into the community and economy – from both labor AND capital. The benefit of building this apples-to-apples method of comparing the value someone brings to an economy that, say, sells services or products… … to someone that, say, is a success coach… … to someone that brings money (capital) into the economy… … is that it enables us to create a balance between the rewards generated from capital brought into empowr, and the rewards generated from labor that’s invested into empowr. In empowr, many of the benefits are distributed based on how many Mission Points you’ve earned – including cash outs and other prizes from the mission wheel. Even the cryptocurrency coins will be distributed based on your Mission Points. Read the announcement 2. A democracy designed -- from the ground up today -- with the benefit of hindsight… … that takes full advantage of the very best thinkers and knowledge of what went wrong – and of what went right -- with democracies around the world. This is why empowr is guided by many of the world’s top political scientists from top universities such as Berkeley, Yale, Duke and MIT. Lots has been happening around the world lately, however, that has people questioning whether democracy, as a form of government can or will (or even should) survive. At empowr, we believe it must survive. Perhaps Winston Churchill said it best: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Those that believe democracy has seen its best days, and say that we would all be better off with some other form of government, are usually stumped when probed for a better approach. While democracy is the best form of government, like all systems and processes it too could benefit immensely from some improvements and updates. When was the last time a group of people took a bold look at democracy and what went right and wrong, and attempted to build a new democracy with all that information -- while also taking into consideration what new technologies can offer? (More on new technologies in belief #4 below). We’re unaware of any real such attempts, outside of empowr, where the participants kept moving forward after the diffiuclties presented themselves. 3. A democracy with real social mobility Equal opportunity is the most fundamental of human rights What’s needed is a democracy with true social mobility -- where people are free to move upwards and improve their lives to the same degree that they are willing to work hard. There needs to be a clear path for everyone – no matter where they are in life – to achieve any socioeconomic level that they set out to achieve. Wait. Perhaps it would better to not have any socioeconomic levels at all? Everyone would be equal. What do you think? Let’s be honest There will always exist different socioeconomic levels. Rather than pretend like they don’t exist, let’s go the opposite direction – and acknowledge them -- and even name them. Pretending like levels don’t exist has been tried… … and it failed in the biggest of ways. That’s called communism: Communism created more “Haves” and “Have Nots” than capitalism in every place it was tried. Communism eventually collapsed in every country – even in the most brutal of governments (Cuba and North Korea come to mind) that continue to pretend their system is working… … without regard for the immense suffering of most their people. We don’t need a society without socioeconomic levels What we need is a democracy where the socioeconomic levels are fair, transparent and accessible – meaning: A. Socioeconomic levels clearly identified: First, the levels must be named so they can be referenced. By actually identifying and naming the socioeconomic levels, we can start an honest discussion about them. And we can do a lot more than discuss them: We can actually open the levels up to everyone. B. Transparent requirements: The requirements to achieving any level must be stated transparently for all to view and understand. C. Transparent benefits: The benefits and powers that become available to citizens at each level must also be transparent and understood by all. D. Accessibility: The activities and results required to achieve any level must be accessible to all citizens equally. In other words, the system must be fair. In order to enable the above four requirements (A-D) the empowr community of citizens, success coaches, advisors and employees have been designing, testing and cultivating a solution for many years: In empowr: a) Socioeconomic levels are called “Power Levels” b) What it takes to achieve any power level is simple and transparent c) The benefits unlocked at each power level are transparent – and are about to become much more powerful – as we’ll discuss soon in an upcoming post d) Everyone can participate and achieve any power level, if they are willing to work hard Again, equal opportunity is the most fundamental of human rights. But for access to opportunity to truly be equal, equal access to education is also needed. Why is that? It's because life is short. Without learning from those that came before us, it’s near-impossible to be very successful in any area in a single lifetime. This is why our Success Coaches -- and what they do -- are provided completely free of charge to all empowr citizens from the moment they join. For our economy and democracy to survive and thrive, the community must take responsibility for the education of our citizens. And that’s why the compensation and power of Success Coaches will continue to grow, as will be happening today -- if you approve of our suggestions below. To be clear: To grow the success level of our citizens, we need to continue to attract and retain some of the smartest and most capable people to the success coaching program. In other words, for equal opportunity to be real in empowr, success coaching must continue to become more and more rewarding. 4. A democracy made for today and tomorrow -- the 21st century – taking full advantage of the opportunities presented by new technologies Technology is changing everything in our lives – and our political systems need to be updated to reflect the power and opportunities, and the perils, that come with these new technologies. By uniquely integrating a social media platform, with commerce/marketplace, education, virtual currency, transportation, apps and political systems… … and with each of those systems taking full advantage of what we could learn from the very best of breed platforms in each category… … and with this community inventing many of the missing parts ourselves… … together we have stayed on the cutting edge of using technology to build a better economy and democracy. (Just imagine what can and will happen now, as resources allow)… 5. A democracy with term limits for all politicians The longer a person is in power, the more connections they make, naturally – and the more “soft corruption” happens – even with the most honest of people trying hard for that to not happen. Why? Because human beings become more comfortable working with people that they’ve worked with before. One unfortunate side effect of that aspect of human nature, is that… … the longer a leader stays in power… … the more the power and opportunities will flow to a limited number of people and companies – those closest to the leader and people at the top… … leaving less opportunities for everyone else. There’s only one solution: Periodic revolution at the top Revolutions can be violent Revolutions can also happen peacefully and without bloodshed: A peaceful revolution is also known as an election. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable”.
- John F. Kennedy 6. A democracy that pushes power away from big centralized government, taking it closer to the people One approach doesn’t fit all. Different people want different things from their government. Sometimes what various large groups of people want in a democracy are exactly opposites. Here in America, as well as in many countries in the world, politics are tearing family and friends apart. It seems like half the people are forced to temporarily give up on their hopes and dreams, when the other side wins the elections. But now, with empowr countries, switching (virtual) countries is as easy as one-click of your mouse. Or start your own country. Earlier this year, together we started empowr countries. Now it’s time for the next big steps with countries… … further empowering our citizens (increasing their influence) by pushing power away from empowr (the company) towards the people and the empowr country of their choice. Summary of the six (6) objectives with our next democratic moves: 1. Keep working to achieve and maintain optimal balance between labor and capital 2. Don’t reinvent the wheel: Learn from mistakes and successes of past and current democracies 3. Ensure equal access to opportunity and education 4. Take advantage of, and avoid pitfalls, of latest technologies 5. Enforce term limits for everyone in power 6. Push power away from big centralized government and closer to the people What’s next for empowr’s move towards greater democracy? OK, so with those objectives in mind… Today let’s discuss: · -- Pushing power away from empowr (the company) towards its citizens · -- Empowering empowr countries · -- Enabling democracy to flourish in empowr countries · -- Electing empowr’s (the company’s) officials Let’s get right to our suggestions: 1. As a reminder, empowr will have a total of 10 billion cryptocurrency coins. 2. Anyone that signed up to empowr prior to now will be recognized as an empowr founder, since – as founders often do – our community members have faced significant difficulties and barriers involved with building something from nothing… … and they have not only survived but have succeeded in so many ways. They therefore deserve both recognition and reward. 3. To reward our founders for their successes, 1 billion (10%) of the coins will be provided to them (you) free of charge -- hopefully starting in the next 48-72 hours. (Just waiting on engineering to give us the thumbs up). 4. Any unclaimed founder coins will be auctioned off to empowr founders -- at a discount. Read the announcement 5. Each month, 1% of empowr’s remaining coins (from its 9 billion coins) will be released to empowr to compensate empowr citizens as well as pay for operations and marketing. 6. One of the most important set of decisions that can be made in a democracy, involves economics. That is, how its citizens are compensated. Therefore, we are suggesting that empowr countries should decide how their citizens are compensated. 7. Approach: We suggest simply taking all of empowr’s coins that will be distributed monthly, and giving them to countries proportional to the number of 30-day mission points the country achieved in the month. As an example: If in February 2018: Country A’s citizens generated 100,000 mission points and Country B’s citizens generated 200,000 mission points. Country A and Country B will both be given empowr coins that they can distribute to their citizens during the month of March 2018…. … with Country A receiving twice as many coins as Country B receives, to distribute to their citizens. Both countries will be able to decide exactly how the coins will be distributed. Why do we think this is a good idea? We think this is good because it pushes power closer to the people. If you don’t like how Country A is approaching its economics, you are free to tell them, and help them improve their approach. You are also free to leave Country A and join a different country. And you are equally free to start your own country, and try your hand at a better set of rules and approaches.
Where is this headed?
The best approaches will eventually attract and retain the most productive citizens. And the rest of us will benefit from their learnings – which we might want to utilize in our own empowr countries. Within weeks from today, you’ll be able to think of empowr as no longer just one experiment… … but as hundreds of separate experiments happening in parallel… … all working hard -- even competing -- to find the best ways to assist their citizens in their individual and collective pursuit of happiness and prosperity. As with all such experiments, there will be winning approaches and some that don’t do as well. We will learn from all participants and we will salute them all, as there can be little progress without the willingness to experiment and face risk. Just as much as the winning approaches, the methods that don’t succeed as well will teach us valuable lessons, that will help make the economies of the surviving countries stronger and better. The result will be an overall stronger empowr economy, in which everyone benefits. As a reminder, the key to the success of the empowr mission, and to the prosperity of its citizens, is our ability to grow a strong economy. 8. As you know, empowr citizens are currently able to join -- or create -- pre-countries. Thanks for all your work in building up your pre-countries: In recent months, you have created nearly 1,000 empowr pre-countries – each with members that are producing an average of hundreds of Mission Points monthly. To see the top empowr pre-countries, visit the country leaderboard. 9. On the 1st day of every month, any pre-country that meets the following criteria will become an official empowr country: A. The pre-country’s citizens must have a combined W or greater 30-day Mission Points B. The pre-country must have at least X citizens that individually have Y or more 30-day Mission Points This conversion from pre-country to country will officially begin on Feb 1, 2018. Note: Rather than pre-subscribe the values of W, X and Y above (and Z below) let’s use this blog post to hear your thoughts and suggestions on what those variables should be set to. Pushing more power and control to the people So, if the first priority is to push economics power, control and influence to the people… … what’s the next set of powers that should be pushed to the people? We think it may be the power for empowr citizens to: A. Control their countries B. Control empowr (the company) Therefore, we have the following suggestions: 10. Countries will each have one (1) congressperson per Z citizens. This is to ensure that as the number of citizens in a country grows, so does its number of representatives, and the country’s overall power within empowr. Again, the value of Z needs to be decided as a community. 11. Countries will each have two (2) senators. This is to bring some power back to the smaller countries, to help avoid “the tyranny of the majority“ – an inherent weakness in democracies where larger groups of people can end up oppressing those in the minority simply by outnumbering (out-voting) them. 12. All politicians must first be Success Coaches for at least 1 year. During 2018, let’s bring this down to only 6 months to give more people a chance. As discussed in the past, this is to ensure people that wish to serve others by becoming politicians, have first demonstrated that desire by serving a smaller group of people. Doing that helps create a transparent apples-to-apples comparison between candidates, since success coaches are measured by the quality of their work, their citizens’ success level, their citizens’ happiness level, and the speed of their work. That performance comparison data is always available to the public on the success coach leaderboard page. 13. Country politicians (senators, congresspersons and the country’s president) are elected by the country’s citizens by voting. 14. The length of a country politician’s terms will be set by the country’s Founders, and can be changed in the future if they like. 15. All politicians have a term limit of 1. That means no reelection possible. Do you think this rule is unnecessary? We believe that this is one of the two (2) biggest problems in some democracies (the other being the loss of balance between labor and capital). For example, in the U.S., senators and congresspersons can be reelected as many times as they like. The result is, well, no matter what your political views are, you probably agree that Washington (congress and the senate, in particular) have been failing the nation. Fact: Over 90% of Americans have little to no faith in those politicians, but 85% of those politicians keep getting reelected. Any idea why that is? (Answer coming in a moment) 16. Founders of countries (up to 10 per country) will keep their Country Founder title permanently, so long as they had it when the pre-country became an official country. 17. A Country Founder can be self-selected as its first president. As President, they are also subject to a term limit of 1. 18. Country Founders will be like the Queen of England – always important to the country even without elected powers. A Country Founder’s job is to set the culture, remind everyone of their country’s mission and purpose, and help citizens and politicians work through important discussions and topics when they get stuck. They are the keeper of the country’s purpose and reason for existing. They act like a guiding light to ensure everyone is more likely to stay on the right path, even as – and especially when - they go through difficult times or work to overcome important challenges. Let’s make sure of Country Founders’ continued importance by promoting them on the country’s homepage and via other ways that together we come up with – such as an “Announcement” bar (like the yellow bar that is used for new company announcements) that can light up for the country’s citizens anytime a Country politician or Founder makes an announcement. 19. The next empowr (company) presidential election will be on June 21st, 2018. 20. In the past, each citizen had one vote. We suggest that voting power should be based on each citizen’s “12-month mission points” – which is the number of mission points they earned in the last 12 months. For example, if I have 1,000 12-month MPs and you have 2,000, your vote counts twice as much as mine. By making votes count based on mission points, it helps: A. Fight fraud: Opening new accounts just to vote no longer sways the vote B. Balance labor and capital Question: So, if 90% of Americans have little faith in congresspersons and senators… How come 85% of those politicians keep getting reelected? Answer: In America, big money is deciding who gets elected - not the people. Which means the people have lost control of their democracy. In empowr, by using mission points for voting, we are rebalancing the power of labor and capital: Those that bring capital (money) into empowr, gain voting power, influence and control. They deserve it because their money helps the empowr mission, economy and community succeed. And those that, instead of their money choose to invest their time and hard work – and achieve results from their work – are also rewarded with power, influence and control. They also deserve it because it is only with the results derived from their work that the empowr mission, economy and community can succeed. For those of you that are convinced that capital is more important than labor, I will remind you that empowr was built without a single penny of capital. I would challenge you to build an empowr using tons of capital but without dedicated and caring labor – the kind of care that cannot be bought. Consider for a moment that all the mega-billion-dollar tech giants have tried to build and integrate all the components that together we have succeeded in building and integrating -- and thus far -- they have all failed. For example: Why does Facebook’s marketplace (reengineered many times) still have no transactions? It’s not because they haven’t tried. They have tried and failed numerous times. Why does Google’s social network have no marketplace? They can’t even get their social network to succeed, so why bother adding a marketplace? Why do Amazon, eBay and Apple have no community / social network? All three have tried and failed. Watching Google fail repeatedly has added to their reluctance to even try. Want even more proof of how capital cannot succeed without labor? Take a look at the economic production of countries (like the U.S.) where the balance of capital and labor are being lost. Their lackluster economics speaks for themselves. When a balance of rewards from labor and capital is achieved, economic production is optimized. This is why democracy – when done right – ultimately produces higher economic production and prosperity for its citizens than other forms of government.
Done right
= balancing the influence of labor and capital = voting based on mission points 21. For new empowr policies and rules to be enacted, we’ll need a majority of senators (51%) plus a majority of congresspersons (51%) plus the company president to approve. 22. New laws begin as ideas: A. First, a congressperson sponsors a bill. The bill is then assigned to a committee for study. If released by the committee, the bill is put on a calendar to be voted on, debated or amended. B. If the bill passes by simple majority, the bill moves to the Senate. In the Senate, the bill is assigned to another committee and, if released, debated and voted on. Again, a simple majority, passes the bill. C. Finally, a conference committee made of House and Senate members works out any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. D. The resulting bill is presented to the President – who has two (2) weeks to sign or veto the bill. 23. The above rules are simply a starting point – not an ending point. The empowr president, country presidents and politicians will work to update and improve the rules, with the help of the empowr political science advisors. The empowr constitution will need to be written in 2018, and many new laws will be created in our new democracy. 24. Along with the power for countries to decide how their citizens are compensated, even more powers need to be pushed to the countries. Our intention is, as the new year arrives in two weeks, that we will be doing exactly that.
empowr country founders and citizens: Thanks for your patience and not giving up or losing faith along the way. ---------- Do the above ideas seem like the next most reasonable steps to pushing control and influence of empowr to its citizens? What would you add, subtract or modify? We are looking forward to your thoughts, ideas, complaints, suggestions etc. Yours truly, -JC
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