The Cognitive Dissonance That Lacks AIMS – An Interview With the ASDF / Part 2

Q: Y2K : Can you briefly recount the role and mission of the ASDF and how it fits into the oligarchy of the brotherhood? I believe this is a question that many of our readers are interested in.

 

A:  Vollariane: Certainly. First, let me just say the ASDF is not an acronym. It is actually the first

four letters one learns in typing – if anything it is a play of words on the whole idea of how the left hand complements the right hand of the brotherhood. The ASDF was first set up sometime in the middle of the age of reason, 350 years ago – at its inception, the mission of the ASDF was to profile instructional and directional advisory for many our space diplomats to deal with the complexities of having to administrate over many of our virtual dominions and territories.

 

Q: Can you share with us how you develop instructional and directional advisories? And how was this used to analyze the recent AIMS initiative?

 

Certainly, through the years we have developed a variety of predictive tools. Many of them were developed based on our extensive experience in gaming. I think if you really want to understand how we ‘break it down’, then it is not so different from how one goes about playing the game Sim City – every good game starts with a few plausible scenarios – its then allowed to run its logical course and at various milestones the metrics are tracked, assessed and analyzed by our team to see how well they compare to real life models.

 

This way we can get a very good feel of how theory can past into the realm of reality.

 

Q: Many have lauded the efforts of AIMS in recommending a series of wide sweeping changes designed to free the net. Even the blogger 13 have described their thrust as “progressive.” Can you share with us what is your opinion?

 

A: I have no comment about the blogger 13.

 

As far as what AIMS is trying to accomplish. I think we need to see it all from the perspective of change management – by this I mean, we need to look further into its mission, strategy and philosophy.

 

Here, we may need to ask ourselves very basic questions like what’s the evidential basis that under grids the whole impetus for ‘change?’ Along with asking ourselves questions like; why change now? Why wasn’t change seen to be relevant before? Who benefits the most from these proposed changes? 

 

What amounts to ‘good’ ‘fair’ or ‘bad’ change really depends on how robust these underpinnings are to critical analysis.

 

I think there is always a danger of taking the path of least resistance by assuming an abolition of a draconian law necessarily translates into a plus.

 

Q: Can you give us an actual case study that illustrates what you just said? I find it quite a big contradiction when you say abolition of bad doesn’t equate to good.

 

A: Certainly – this goes back to what I just said about managing change. The key word here is ‘managing’ so it implies while the end is very important i.e to seed democracy. It’s not as important as the means – here we need to ask question like; who is the government? Or who is usually seen as the government? Who takes ownership of this process? How well integrated is the logic for change within all these processes?

 

Good does not in some cases equal good – not even if you have the best goals, but lack the means –  That didn’t happen when the Russians once bought wholesale into Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost and perestroika.

 

In fact it percipatated the balkanization of the USSR. And if you look at the present day problems in Georgia and the tussled that is currently unfolding in the Caucasus its really an accretion of what I call great goals but no means to get there.

 

We also the see the same contradiction unfolding in modern day Iraq, decamp on dictatorship and this doesn’t necessarily lead automatically to happy democracy – instead the ‘good’ there just happens to be something closer to a doomsday Iranian self styled theocracy – the sum of all our fears. So again we have a classic case of great goals but no means to get there.

 

So when AIMS goes about dismantling these icons and symbolisms of authoritianism and state inspired heavy handedness – we really need to stand back and ask ourselves questions like what accounts for these changes? How is changed defined here? And if possible even go backstage and look at the underpinnings that accounts for their overall strategy, plan and philosophy.

 

 

Q: In the executive version of the AIMS report. You mentioned the following,

 

“How is it possible to reconcile the imperative for real and meaningful social and political change whilst balancing the strategic priorities of nation building and social stability?”

 

What are you trying to say here? Are you saying AIMS doesn’t stand a chance of succeeding? Can you please clarify your point further as I believe the report was just an executive summary and it could have given many readers the wrong impression as to what you were trying to convey.

 

A: OK. It seems I may have rushed a few steps forward. Let me backtrack for the benefit of our readers.

 

Is it true to say just because diametrically opposite ideas exist in a framework; this means real and meaningful change is impossible?

 

If you read carefully that is definitely not what we are trying to convey. On the contrary when we highlighted how the national building objective was incompatible with the whole idea of freeing up the net.

 

We were merely underscoring the importance of managing change by resorting to a guiding philosophy.

 

Q: Vollariane can you give us a case study of what you mean by “resorting to a guiding philosophy?” I feel this is very complicated area and it would serve the benefit of our readers immeasurably if you clarified your point by way of an actual example.

 

A: Certainlyt Y2K – Now if you want a case study look at what’s been unfolding in China in the last twenty years, what we see there is how socialism as a philosophy of social justice and as a program for national development has been seamlessly integrated with the free market based economy.

 

The Chinese planners have done an excellent job there. We know. We have studied this extensively from both a macro and micro level and even reverse engineered many of their thoughtware into our gaming construct.

 

The learning outcome is how were they able to harmonize the hubris between shifting gears from state-run economics to free market?

 

Now you can more or less superimpose this on what AIMS is trying to accomplish when it tries to balance the strategic imperatives of nation building, social stability and intra faith harmony with the whole idea of creating a freer net – I don’t necessarily see these goals as incompatible.

 

However I need to qualify myself here. How did China reconcile the hubris?

 

How did they successfully transition from party dictatorship to electoral democracy? How did they rationalize, capitalism over socialism? In a nub how did they make the paradigm shift to modernity without spinning out of control like the USSR?

 

First, we need to debunk a few myths here; this feat was not accomplished at an incremental pace. If you say they did it gingerly test water style, then I can show you reams of metrics to prove you wrong till you are blue in the face.

 

Neither did they accomplish this in the way one feels for stones when crossing a river; that’s a bit like saying a hurricane can whip through a junkyard and magically assemble a space shuttle. So there has to be something more to this story.

 

The short answer is they had an all encompassing philosophy to manage this miraculous process of change.

 

Now this is what I mean when I use the term underpinning? Or when I say we need to go back stage and take a look at the machine that regulates the process of change.

 

My point is without a complimentary philosophy to legitimize and even justify the impetus for change then you might as well forget the whole idea of how to make sense of Deng Xiaoping’s experiment with market- based reforms or how does one effectively circumvent Marxist-Leninist dogma to make all these social political experiments possible.

 

It would seem this philosophy is the stuff of new age management, but my point is its jugular to the whole idea of managing change successfully.

 

In the Chinese experience, not only  was the philosophy for change widely disseminated, it even permeated right into the core of the party hegemony running through the committee, brigade and cadre level to even reach the humble level of the province administrator at the edge of the known world.

 

So if you speak to any middle management bureacrat in lets say Ministry X, Y or Z – do not be surprise if he can even recount with admirable ease why there is no contradiction between democracy and communism – and not only can he square the accounts off economically, legally, socially and even philosophically - he can even give you some ideas of how he has been working to add value to the whole national vision - my point is even at this cookie cutter intra executive level; these agents of change not only have a firm grasp of the philosophy of change; which allows them to not only set A to B goals, but they even have the capacity to synthesis new knowledge which allows them to fashion interdiction strategies to go around road blocks to best articulate the vision. We see this most clearly in the autonomous regions in China, but that is another story - in this way not only do all their super sized tankers sail in one direction, even their sampans have very good compasses and all their skippers have the latest nautical maps - that I believe is what AIMS should be focussing on – not the doing part, but the reason why it should be done; not the how, but the why; not the instructional, but the directional – not the tactical, but the strategic.

 

If they get the formulation and priorty right – the rest will fall into place very beautifully but to do this, they need to be able to flesh out the same philosophical underpinnings, instead of approaching change in a piecemeal fashion.

 

This will all take time.

 

 

Q: So what you are saying is really like what Werhner Von Braun once said about the space race; “it’s all maths, get that right and the rest is just engineering?”

 

A: Yes and no Y2K – I think the philosophy needs to be seen as a unifying force. Let me share with you why. Just ask yourself a simple question; who is the government?

 

This may seem like a frivolous question, but it acquires added complexity in Singapore. As who is the government isn’t really very well defined; for example is MiCa the government? What about the ST? What about the housewife who is heading the ping pong committee? Is she the name and face of the government? 

 

From this lightning analysis, we can already see there is a real need for convergence. This is why we believe the governing philosophy that drives change is so important. I dont believe our simulations can be so wrong.

 

In this case the philosophy will function very much as a hub even that allows all the different spokes which make up the legislature, executive and judiciary to line up – for that to happen, we certainly need to take a leaf from Von Braun, but bear in mind, there was also a risk here. I believe there is a song that once parodied the achievement of the father of rocketry, it began somewhat sardonically with the words,

 

 

“I aim for the moon, but some times my rockets end up in London.”

You need to ask yourself why?

 

 

Q: So Vollariane, let me get it straight – you are saying AIMS needs the same philosophical driven change?

 

A: Look I am for one very sympathetic to Mr Cheong and his associates. I don’t take the same belligerent attitude as Darkness. I fully appreciate the constraints and even the impossibility of the mission.

 

I know what they have been tasked to do is really unrealistic. I am surprised they have managed to get this far.

 

Only I believe, for there to be real change. They may first need to first buy into the whole idea of an integrated strategy and this requires the buy in of all; AIMS cannot do this alone and it’s not realistic for them to bear the entire burden of change while the government sits down like some Emperor expecting to hear good news.

 

This in my opinion is just silly.

 

This is where I think we can extrapolate many of the Chinese experience to add  value to the approach.

 

There needs to be a consensus on what is the governing philosophy that guides these so called changes; it is not enough to just change for the sake of change by symbolically pursuing a strategy of window dressing; that in my view will do more harm than good in the long term.

 

For one it will play into the hands of those who will view it as only dressing up or worst still procedural change.

 

I think what is sorely needed here is a holistic strategy for perpetuating this whole idea of change outside AIMS.

 

One thing good about philosophical led based change is it allows infinite opportunities for those besides the original proponents of change to take an active role in the whole process.

 

As the Chinese experience has taught us, many ordinary people can take it and run with it – this I feel is very important.

 

Here I am talking about those who make up the periphery of what we consider government; msm, public sector etc.

 

At the end of the day whether change will succeed or fail will depend very much on the small narrative or what I call the small timers who drive the whole process of change; here we are not talking about ministers as much as school teachers, journalist, civil servants, librarians, grass root leaders etc.

 

It’s really a process of devolving power or empowerment and this is why we believe very strongly change as an idea needs to be premised on ideology.

 

For this to really happen AIMS need to desperately craft an ideology, ethos or governing formulation.

 

I for one cannot see how they can make any head way without it.

 

We really need to ask ourselves very basic question like how can downliners even take equity in the whole process of change, if they don’t know what are its underpinnings and rationale?

 

What are the resistant factors against ‘change?’ What is their story? I am not saying we need a truth and reconciliation commission to smooth out the rough edges between the blogging community and the government; but I think, you cannot discount the history of how the government has traditionally gunned down the blogging community using all it’s apparatus; neither was this done fairly either in many cases; usually there is a David vs Goliath feel to this tussle; and so it’s not very realistic for the government to say, now I am in the mood for love; I want to reach out; some people may say, go and die lah! Others will just tell you to go and fuck off! 

 

Whether these reactions are right, wrong, proper, appropriate or constructive is in my view wholly irrelevant to the calculation of e-engagement; as a planner; these drivers of resistance need to be scaled accurately and their causal factors needs to be acknowledged and studied rather than marginalized or excused away by simply labelling them as unworthy of engagement.

 

Always bear in mind non engagement is a two way street; you can certainly play it, but so can others; but who wins at the end of the day? 

 

Reading after all is basically a self selecting exercise; TOC readers may read TOC, Mr Brown readers may even read Mr Brown but what makes you think they may not read TOC, Mr Brown or the ST or even the BP?

 

You mean to say all you are relying on for your intelligence gathering is Technocrati stat counters? There are at least 50 ways to manipulate that machine and if we put a team full time on it, we can probably find another 100 ways!

 

So lets get real here. There are no Singaporekini’s here. Even if they exist, their shelve life is extremely short and their hold on pole position is even less assured. 

 

I know this may be hard to believe with TOC claiming to be No.1 every five minutes, but bear in mind things move very fast in the internet; today they may be ahead, but tomorrow, it is anyone’s guess, it could be the Singapore Daily or even a dark horse like Sammy Boy.

 

My point is with so much going on – the definition of e-engagement needs to be all encompassing rather than focussed.

 

My feel is AIMS needs to set realistic expectations when they use the term e-engagement. They should not narrow the ambit of what this means – or even set limits upon themselves – not at this early stage.

 

As what we may actually be dealing with when they use the term e-engagement is something that is to not only very complex, but it is also very much a hearts & minds hubris.

 

That is never easy to resolve; till todate, we don’t even know how to model this outcome reliably on a computer. We can assign 5 teams to model one set of parameters and still get 25 different outcomes! It remains a very disturbing grey area for us. 

 

In that regard having a governing philosophy will go a long way to close the divide, heal the rift and define the rules for engagement.

 

I think these are the strategic issues AIMS needs to consider very seriously.

 

Unless change is defined in this macro small sense, I don’t think it is realistic for us to expect anything to significant to emerge from AIMS.

 

What will probably happen here is the equivalent of pyrotechnics – a few splashes of color will go off and it will all fall black and silent again.

 

That may certainly please some in the crowd. But I assure you the serious people in the same crowd will not be amused.

 

Q: Vollariane you mentioned, the need to close the divide, heal the rift and define the rules of engagement – can you very roughly give us a scale of the cognitive dissonance here?

 

A: Yes, I can Y2K, but we really need to shorten this interview otherwise the only cognitive dissonance here may be we will end up putting most of our readers to sleep – I think the cognitive dissonance at this stage can be described in the following ways;

why does the government want to touch base with netizens now? Why wasn’t this strategy pursued before? What underpinnings accounts for this 180º degree change of heart? Are they trying to carve up competitive advantage in the political sphere at the expense of civil liberties? Is this merely a plan to establish a beach head in blogosphere? Who benefits most from this new initiative? What are the threats and opportunities, if any are they trying to interdict? Are they just trying to secure their hold on power? Is this just a strategy to perpetuate their class politics?

 

These were some of the issues highlighted during our simulation. If we had more time, we could even give you individual weightings to help you landscape these ‘concerns.’

 

This goes back to what I said in the first part; there is a need to prepare the ground and even regard this whole exercise as a hearts & minds initiative; whether a paradigm shift is required will come later, but this part of “preparing the ground” needs to be come out now and not later – that’s no good, it will just come back and bite you.

 

In a sense this problem is not dissimilar to how the brotherhood suffers from negative perception in the virtual; whenever our space fleet shows up on a planet; everyone begins to speculate; “they just want our minerals and precious metals” – you can’t blame them as every where we go; for some strange reason the game is designed where we always have to do a spot of strip mining; so there is always this mercenary tag that we need to shake off – so these days what we do is tell people with the help of a few show girls we are here to develop a marina or artificial lake with condo’s,  malls, casino’s etc but somewhere here, we will also have to do some mining.

 

I don’t consider this a snide and under handed approach; I consider it managing perception.

 

As you can see for yourself; when the government says they want to project online; this is certainly not going to be a walk in the park.

 

Q: One last question Vollariane very quickly – could you share with us very quickly what you would have done differently, if you headed AIMS?

 

A: Y2K, that’s a hypothetical question. First, I don’t think I am that old that anyone would even consider taking me seriously. 

 

But one of the first things I would do is probably acknowledge the past mistakes and oversights. I am not only talking about government here, but also netizens as well. 

 

I think this is very important as it will allow both netizens and those who represent the government to come to terms with their past on a morally acceptable basis and to advance the cause of reconciliation - I don’t see this not as a softy, fuzzy or frivolous act – I see it as a serious strategic precondition if the desire is to seek common ground – a diplomatic condition priori even.

 

There is a schism here that I feel desperately needs closure – and one must just be man enough to accept responsibility for it – I think incidences like the Mr Brown saga is still very much at the forefront of the collective consciousness when we talk about collaborating with the govt.

 

This will not just go away for many – sure you can pretend it doesn’t exist or even label them the lunatic fringe or circulate private e-mail around telling people why these people should be cut off, but bear in mind the narrative will just continue elsewhere – it’s never going to just go away.

 

The second thing I would do is probably expand 99 pages out of a hundred to explain my vision for change and probably use only one paragraph to tell people what I will actually do; I would probably spell it in terms of if I win, so will you, so it pays to help me. 

 

Based on our dealings with the virtual community. And we have nearly 900 over collaborative ventures every earth year from developing new gaming platforms to trying to figure out how to make avatars wink at girls in second life; there’s always a need to carve a solid - I win and you win relationship.

 

It needs to be based on sincerity, mutual respect and trust. Part of that means, we recognize from the onset, how everyone has a right to define how they wish to interact with their community.

 

In our gaming network for example; we once had an online community where a group of people started impersonating robots like the one in the movie 2001 Space Odyssey - this freaked out many of our own people as from time to time, these people would break into our system and erect monoliths.

 

These were not ordinary CGI rectangular blocks. They were state of the art multi pixellization constructs complete with even shadow rendition. These guys were years ahead of Pixar animation and Disney and many of us couldn’t understand where they got their technology from or why would anyone spend so much time and resources on just fashioning monoliths – it seems dumb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1OZCHixR0&feature=related, but I remember even then, Darkness had the wisdom to say let’s go with the flow on this one - at that time, I remember, he even had to fend off many of his own people to give this folk their own space as by then they had created so many enemies.

 

For one they insisted on only speaking to Darkness and when they communicated; they used an unusual codex language written in math notation – to break the codes down we even had to use a Spanish telephone directory - and this convulated way of communicating went on for years.

 

A few years later, some of us travelled to Spain to sell this group space ships and we subsequently discovered all these math genius were all from an Autistic school – eventually, their remarkable gifts were harnessed to good effect by our developers – so there you go – something was ventured and something gained – what can I say?

 

This was a defining lesson for all of us in more ways than we can possibly elaborate – I would like to share some of these strategies of engagement in a latter series e.g the Bee Keeper philosophy, if that is fine with you Y2K – as I feel it will add value to the whole discourse. 

 

What I am trying to say is everyone has a right to be who they want to be online providing they don’t cross the line into crime; even if they do, there are already plenty of laws to deal with that problem; so there is always a need to provision plenty of space for improvisation. If you want polite conversations only, then go to a wine bar – who is stopping you? If you want people not to challenge what you regularly proclaim as the truth, then go and be an academic and lecture in some local institution to people who have zero life experience; who is stopping you? If you want the truth and nothing but the truth, then go and read the Encyclopedia – who is stopping you? If you want community moderation, then go and join the blogger 13; who is stopping you? If you don’t believe anonymity serves the greater good, then use the registration tool bar that wordpress provides you with to filter anonymous comments; who is stopping you? If you have difficulties reconciling security with the right to online privacy. Then go and start a Facebook account. Again who is stopping you?

 

My point is simply this; make sure you exhaust all your options first before you begin imposing your values on others in the name of the greater good - respect other people by giving them the right and space to be who and what they want to be here - this is after all a community.

 

In this regard I don’t think e-engagement is so radically different from how one conducts relationships in the real world - if you respect others, they will usually respect you back; if you disrespect them, you cannot blame them; if they choose to say; this is the line; you stay there and I will stay here.

 

This is common sense. It has to be. Otherwise life will simply have no meaning here or any where else.

 

Y2K: Thank you very much Vollariane.

 

Vollariane: Thank you.

 

[This interview was conducted by the Free Internet Library Board with Vollariane, the head of the ASDF – the think tank of the brotherhood – 2008]