Speaking of "an activist visionary agenda"

ND: The art of empire building is now almost lost but some of us carry memories of the process...the behavioral templates...the generation of values...the way visionary projections are made...the institutions...and the processes...but we know now that the underlying pyramid was defective and that we have to generate the network...

BRS: These are some big ideas in the air right now -- and yes, they need to be much-clarified. We'll get there. And yes, "everything ON the table, everybody AT the table" might not be the most practical idea in every venue; this is a high idealism that might be feasible in the USA, with internet support. In Saddam-territory -- this might not be the most logical next step...

As regards "empire building and networks and defective pyramids" -- yes, I think our supposed revolution addresses this concern -- and is the fruit of long-consideration of these issues. Putting it simplistically, we are witnessing the collapse of essentially hierarchical systems ("pyramids") -- for many reasons -- but one big reason is -- the flow of information and energy through a traditional hierarchy involves a devastating information bottleneck at the top. If the amount of information in the system is low enough, maybe "one person at the top" can somehow manage all or most of the decisions. But when systems become hugely complex with thousands of interdependent issues, the "limited cognitive bandwidth" of any one single individual becomes a devastating break-point. The overload causes explosions, and errors, and huge frustration down-stream. We need a model of democracy that is based on "distributed" control -- rather than "lumped" -- as engineers used to say. We need control coming from everywhere in the system -- not simply from the top.

This question is the basis of many arguments -- such as individualism versus collectivism -- states rights versus the federal government -- etc. Where do we locate the decision-maker? Maybe in the ideal system, with a very high degree of balance -- and "alignment", as we are considering it in the concept of "Axis Mundi" -- http://interspirit.net/alliance/axismundi.cfm -- the ideal point of control would be "everywhere" -- every individual person would be tuned to the whole through alignment, and would be empowered by that alignment to "make a perfect decision" on an absolutely fine-grained case-by-case basis.