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Itty Bitty Bigger World: Protocol
Feb. 14th, 2015 07:58 amFICTION FICTION
One of the secret hearts of this quasi-utopia we've carved out for ourselves in San San is the concept of Protocol.
I've been taught (and we now teach children) that Protocol is at the heart of numerous ancient cultures, but especially Confucianism as practiced by the Chinese. There is a right and proper way to do things, and otherwise things are simply Not Done.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the primitive computer networks that would grow to pervade every part of our waking existence were designed to comply with protocols. The big fight was between "proprietary / closed" and "open source" technologies and techniques. The latter of course won.
One particular protocol serves as an example.
At its core, the Cairo Protocol is a series of agreements that functionally outlaw war between nations. It was largely imposed, not negotiated -- while there had been input from some of the greatest thinkers of the age, it was still a peace dictated at virtual gunpoint. America and China had the drop on the rest of the world; both hyperpowers (one resurgent, one emergent) were sick and tired of nationalist expansionism and global terrorism; and both found an astonishing amount of common ground in preserving the status quo.
It was agreed that Protocol Enforcement would wield ultimate power. The agreement was by the survivors. Those who most objected, somehow lost all power. Some were embroiled in scandal. Some died in accidents; the more unlikely the accident, the more likely it was that Protocol Enforcement was sending a message thereby. But increasingly, many were removed by their own governments, employees and/or constituents, more and more often peacefully.
"Who shall guard the guardians?" is one of the ancient riddles of political science. The answer Protocol Enforcement found is simple and radical. Everybody. Protocol Enforcement agents are publicly registered. There are many thousands of them. They are watched by their own forum on Threat Trackers. A Protocol Enforcement agent who goes rogue, or accumulates undue wealth or influence ... see above under scandal, accident and/or removal.
I was invited three times to join Protocol Enforcement. Once after the Last War; once a decade ago; and most recently, two years ago.
I declined. I didn't want so many people traipsing through what I liked to fantasize was still my personal life.
National borders are set by one part of the Cairo Protocol. Strict limits on national armies are established by another. Reinforcement of what was once called the "Laws of War" but now applied to acts of individuals, small groups and subnational organizations was a third. This included the only 'atrocious' crime in the Cairo Protocol - murder.
Very few individual rights were addressed. One important one was the right of departure. Any person could choose to elect exile from a nation-state rather than continue to accept punishment for crime. Of course, that nation-state did not have to take them back.
Enclaves were established for stateless persons - one per continent, except Antarctica. In practice, many nations were willing to take in the "unwashed masses" of other countries, if said masses had skills or (at first) cold hard cash. The Cairo Protocol was a solution to war, not poverty, and an enclave would guarantee only that one would be fed and not die of exposure.
Poverty was overwhelmed by wealth much as public water replaced private wells.
Under the aegis of the Cairo Protocol, nation states increasingly grew less ... relevant. The fall of the United States itself is an excellent example. In 2032 the 3rd Constitutional Convention, duly convened by a supermajority vote of state legislatures, met and did something that would have been unthinkable two decades ago - voted to dissolve the "more perfect Union" that so many had fought and died for.
Much of this was a reaction to a last gasp of Federal power ... the imprisonment of several leading celebrities for nonpayment of income taxes, themselves nominal.
That was shocking enough. But what the Chinese did was even more extreme. No more government at all. The Communist Party declared irrelevance and victory in one sweeping statement and disbanded the People's Liberation Army. Bureaucracy would serve, but the days of politics as such had ended.
In the post-information age, everyone had access to perfect data. In the post-economic age, wealth was so free and so widespread that depriving someone of something they needed was now a crime, "economic battery," but rarely committed and even more rarely prosecuted. In the post-industrial age, wealth as such was less important than intangibles such as quality of life, consideration of neighbors, deep ecology, risk management and longevity.
Some philosophers call this the "Ethical Age." As individuals and as a species, we wield enormous personal power -- but my freedom to swing my fist about stops where your face begins, and that sweeping power can be swept away if you annoy, let alone endanger your neighbors.
The tool for managing that power, and for making decisions as a group, is Protocol.
A small example is the regulation of personal arms. The 2nd Amendment is as dead a letter as the Magna Carta, but the right to individual and collective self defense is enshrined in the Cairo Protocol. "The means of personal protection must not be denied to any person without good and sufficient cause." In parallel is another protection, "The right to work includes the right to possess and make use of the means of production." As most industrial tools make incredibly effective weapons ...
Stunners based on the bioelectric principle are _everywhere_, as unnoticed a part of daily life as the light bulb and the video camera. The perspective is that if a person manages to get themselves stunned, they needed it for their own protection. The minimum age to carry a stunner - with training and registration - is the same as the age of understanding right and wrong, or age eight. The right of any adult to carry a stunner in any place they have a right to be is unquestioned. It takes a lot of misuse to lose the right to carry a stunner; effectively synonymous with being a criminal on severe probation.
More serious weapons such as slammers and grasers, capable of lethal functioning but with numerous non-lethal uses, require training in safe handling and are much more revocable for cause.
Smartguns - as multipurpose effective hand weapons - are highly regulated but universally available to law abiding adults. So far, at least in San San, the form of control has been to ladle them with bureaucratic regulations and arcane requirements.
Truly military weapons and systems, intended for such use, are incredibly restricted by Protocol and by their peers. Orbital lasers are so very useful in numerous applications, but the potential for misuse is vexing. Battlesuits are weapons of war, pure and simple, and somehow a home grown battlesuit (and yes, it's happened) is just as vulnerable to Protocol-generated shutdown as any organizational model.
Dual use systems are just as restricted. In a world where any high school science lab can make a nuclear weapon, this is necessary.
Only a few exotic weapons and systems are banned. The nerve disruptor is one such. Instead of stunning nerves, it fries them. They are shorter ranged than stunners, no faster, and require more power. In short, there is no purpose to nerve disruptors except killing or maiming for no good reason. Thus they are outlawed. A tiny one, or "holdout" nerve disruptor, is even more illegal... one of the few items for which mere possession is good for a civil intelligence hearing, with no exemption for police status.
Dammit!
One of the secret hearts of this quasi-utopia we've carved out for ourselves in San San is the concept of Protocol.
I've been taught (and we now teach children) that Protocol is at the heart of numerous ancient cultures, but especially Confucianism as practiced by the Chinese. There is a right and proper way to do things, and otherwise things are simply Not Done.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the primitive computer networks that would grow to pervade every part of our waking existence were designed to comply with protocols. The big fight was between "proprietary / closed" and "open source" technologies and techniques. The latter of course won.
One particular protocol serves as an example.
At its core, the Cairo Protocol is a series of agreements that functionally outlaw war between nations. It was largely imposed, not negotiated -- while there had been input from some of the greatest thinkers of the age, it was still a peace dictated at virtual gunpoint. America and China had the drop on the rest of the world; both hyperpowers (one resurgent, one emergent) were sick and tired of nationalist expansionism and global terrorism; and both found an astonishing amount of common ground in preserving the status quo.
It was agreed that Protocol Enforcement would wield ultimate power. The agreement was by the survivors. Those who most objected, somehow lost all power. Some were embroiled in scandal. Some died in accidents; the more unlikely the accident, the more likely it was that Protocol Enforcement was sending a message thereby. But increasingly, many were removed by their own governments, employees and/or constituents, more and more often peacefully.
"Who shall guard the guardians?" is one of the ancient riddles of political science. The answer Protocol Enforcement found is simple and radical. Everybody. Protocol Enforcement agents are publicly registered. There are many thousands of them. They are watched by their own forum on Threat Trackers. A Protocol Enforcement agent who goes rogue, or accumulates undue wealth or influence ... see above under scandal, accident and/or removal.
I was invited three times to join Protocol Enforcement. Once after the Last War; once a decade ago; and most recently, two years ago.
I declined. I didn't want so many people traipsing through what I liked to fantasize was still my personal life.
National borders are set by one part of the Cairo Protocol. Strict limits on national armies are established by another. Reinforcement of what was once called the "Laws of War" but now applied to acts of individuals, small groups and subnational organizations was a third. This included the only 'atrocious' crime in the Cairo Protocol - murder.
Very few individual rights were addressed. One important one was the right of departure. Any person could choose to elect exile from a nation-state rather than continue to accept punishment for crime. Of course, that nation-state did not have to take them back.
Enclaves were established for stateless persons - one per continent, except Antarctica. In practice, many nations were willing to take in the "unwashed masses" of other countries, if said masses had skills or (at first) cold hard cash. The Cairo Protocol was a solution to war, not poverty, and an enclave would guarantee only that one would be fed and not die of exposure.
Poverty was overwhelmed by wealth much as public water replaced private wells.
Under the aegis of the Cairo Protocol, nation states increasingly grew less ... relevant. The fall of the United States itself is an excellent example. In 2032 the 3rd Constitutional Convention, duly convened by a supermajority vote of state legislatures, met and did something that would have been unthinkable two decades ago - voted to dissolve the "more perfect Union" that so many had fought and died for.
Much of this was a reaction to a last gasp of Federal power ... the imprisonment of several leading celebrities for nonpayment of income taxes, themselves nominal.
That was shocking enough. But what the Chinese did was even more extreme. No more government at all. The Communist Party declared irrelevance and victory in one sweeping statement and disbanded the People's Liberation Army. Bureaucracy would serve, but the days of politics as such had ended.
In the post-information age, everyone had access to perfect data. In the post-economic age, wealth was so free and so widespread that depriving someone of something they needed was now a crime, "economic battery," but rarely committed and even more rarely prosecuted. In the post-industrial age, wealth as such was less important than intangibles such as quality of life, consideration of neighbors, deep ecology, risk management and longevity.
Some philosophers call this the "Ethical Age." As individuals and as a species, we wield enormous personal power -- but my freedom to swing my fist about stops where your face begins, and that sweeping power can be swept away if you annoy, let alone endanger your neighbors.
The tool for managing that power, and for making decisions as a group, is Protocol.
A small example is the regulation of personal arms. The 2nd Amendment is as dead a letter as the Magna Carta, but the right to individual and collective self defense is enshrined in the Cairo Protocol. "The means of personal protection must not be denied to any person without good and sufficient cause." In parallel is another protection, "The right to work includes the right to possess and make use of the means of production." As most industrial tools make incredibly effective weapons ...
Stunners based on the bioelectric principle are _everywhere_, as unnoticed a part of daily life as the light bulb and the video camera. The perspective is that if a person manages to get themselves stunned, they needed it for their own protection. The minimum age to carry a stunner - with training and registration - is the same as the age of understanding right and wrong, or age eight. The right of any adult to carry a stunner in any place they have a right to be is unquestioned. It takes a lot of misuse to lose the right to carry a stunner; effectively synonymous with being a criminal on severe probation.
More serious weapons such as slammers and grasers, capable of lethal functioning but with numerous non-lethal uses, require training in safe handling and are much more revocable for cause.
Smartguns - as multipurpose effective hand weapons - are highly regulated but universally available to law abiding adults. So far, at least in San San, the form of control has been to ladle them with bureaucratic regulations and arcane requirements.
Truly military weapons and systems, intended for such use, are incredibly restricted by Protocol and by their peers. Orbital lasers are so very useful in numerous applications, but the potential for misuse is vexing. Battlesuits are weapons of war, pure and simple, and somehow a home grown battlesuit (and yes, it's happened) is just as vulnerable to Protocol-generated shutdown as any organizational model.
Dual use systems are just as restricted. In a world where any high school science lab can make a nuclear weapon, this is necessary.
Only a few exotic weapons and systems are banned. The nerve disruptor is one such. Instead of stunning nerves, it fries them. They are shorter ranged than stunners, no faster, and require more power. In short, there is no purpose to nerve disruptors except killing or maiming for no good reason. Thus they are outlawed. A tiny one, or "holdout" nerve disruptor, is even more illegal... one of the few items for which mere possession is good for a civil intelligence hearing, with no exemption for police status.
Dammit!
