Memento Sapient Guildocracies
The King of the Memento Sapient Guildocracy has 2 ministers, blue-team and red-team. One has to always back up the king’s idea, plan, judgment, exploring implications, justifications, and executions. One has to always find holes in these, and proffer own alternate theories with implications, justifications and executions. They will argue, that’s what they’re good at. The King will know the balance of when argument is pointless and will step in with guiding pointers, and at some times, firm decisiveness. Other than these 2 ministers, others are constantly also carrying out this dialectic, and in case any ideas are coming up the grapevine, ie an established order of seniority, then it is taken to the Socratics for further consideration. This is especially if they’re at a stalemate. For instance, as B, I have no longer answers to R’s questions, or no longer have questions to R’s answers, then when all eyes turn to me, I stay silent. I will either meditate on it, or bow if I see the logic of my opponent. At this time, if the occasion calls for it, the King can override the stalemate or checkmate and switch roles, asking the winner to defend that which he has attacked. If he cannot, it is concluded. If he can, the original defender becomes the attacker, perhaps you’ll have more to say about the viewpoint that has won you over, similarly perhaps you’ll have more to warn about the viewpoint that you were championing.
Now, suppose decisions start failing, and you notice from up the grapevine a correct solution has been circulating at more odds than pure luck, this is how ministers are promoted up to the role. Can this work if the King is not similarly chosen by a meritocratic system which spits out the most wise, and most decisive, practical person? If not, then the ministers will start outshining the King, and wielding more influence than they want. That causes jealousy. First, it is caused within the order, because the prize becomes too valuable to miss out on. It will start attracting not the most dedicated, or most intellectual, but the most ambitious. This jealousy must be designed for.
The other design is jealousy from other functions of the kingdom, and we need look no farther than the military. The Generals hate that the eggheads and intellectuals are in charge. They will start to focus on the failures. They will start to orchestrate the failures. Each plan is only as good as its execution. But the execution is not the intellectual’s responsibility is it? How can the decision be separated from its outcome while maintaining an incentive to be correct and an intense analysis of that which is incorrect. Such a plot arises, and the military starts to poison the King’s mind against the intellects. This is not difficult especially in a situation where the intellects start to outshine the sovereign, and the sovereign is insecure and corruptible. But it is the intellects who design the system, that means they plan for such obvious threats. That raises for them an important problem. Que custodiet ipsos custodiens. They are depending on the incorruptibility of their own faction. That is a supremely irrational thing to expect unbroken lines of flawlessness. Eternity’s a long time, a very long time.
The reason I thought of this is actually very different. What if the affluent or important have access to ‘literalizers’, these are trained psychologists focused on rooting out bullshit and the emotional nature of things I say. So I will have one constantly, like Caesar’s memento mori, but instead of pointing out my blood sugar is fatally out of control it will cut through the fog and tell the other/me what I’m really saying. If I get really defensive about something I would ordinarily myself agree was an irrational response, my literalizer would take my pointless circuitous defensiveness as ‘I’m feeling defensive because this hurts my ego.’ And I won’t get hurt as long as one condition is met, I implicitly trust the literalizer as only ever having my own interests at heart.
The minute I think it is putting someone ahead of me, I lose trust and get mad when I hear something against me. This has a justification in those who fall prey to it, because the literalizer by dint of its role enjoys a far more open channel straight to the person’s mind, and therefore will first be taken without any mental defenses. This can be dangerous if it leads the individual to ruin. So again, how to disconnect the literalizer from the empirical results of its analyses? Some people have a Red Team to analyze the literalizer, that’s where we ended up with above, the same way local nobles and chieftains ended up in a pyramid with a King. But then what about those who are smart enough to analyze the literalizer themselves, simply adding it as a tool, a technology, not a secret whispering demon.
It is the whispering demon that makes the Intellectual Guild much stricter with their members than anyone else can be. Like the Sedai, if they are not stricter with their members than others, they will soon be persecuted and hated. It is the curse of the Guild, the transference of identity from the individual to the collective. If one sins, all sin. And unless all want to sin, none will sin. But what if a majority want to break, and take over? This seems very difficult to accomplish. Even a majority means the others who will always have the rational upper hand. Consider a majority want to stage a coup and take over. This is because they believe things can be better with them in charge. The minority can always say that coups have never been stable, and only provide grounds for resentment, this would need management and they are not managers, they are not spies or intriguers, they are socratics. In this case the true case for long-term betterment would be self-destructive, an act of martyrdom instead of coups, and that means their reputation has not been besmirched, and soon their utility will add to their martyrdom and create a willingly supportive republic. Thus, the intellectual minority would easily prefer self-destruction over coup, assuming they are truly dedicated to the cause devoid of self-preservation. Some will choose self-preservation. Some will stay neutral. The question is, can the majority prevent the minority from initiating a self-destruct. This cannot be written into the laws, because the same law that maintains that a wayward member must be treated worse by the Guild than by others, must likewise maintain that a wayward Guild must be treated worse by the Guild than by others. This waywardness can simply be defined like the robotic laws. That means the minority cannot be harmed, and the self-destruct cannot be stopped?
The Memento Sapient Guildocracy leaves behind its footprint long after it self-destructed in the year 15330.
