4.9 The Generative Agreement (GA)

The IE program package operates in a main node computer that also contains all of the package's programs and files. The GA interacts with its external users via terminal computers, identi-keys, sensors and servos. A terminal can contain IE files and programs, and be used for other purposes, such as word processing, internet, games etc. The IE appears on terminal screens as a virtual personality known as Ordifaye. In the cyberspace behind the screens, she is a re-entrant program that can serve many terminals at once.

A user logs onto the IE at terminal with an identi-key (#4.4). This is like a modern mobile telephone -it knows its owner by biometry the way a dog knows its master by the smell. It thus identifies its owner unambiguously. It can be clicked to buy goods in shops or from terminals, check in and out of work, and the like. Ordifaye appears when the user has identi-clicked the terminal. She asks him/her which of the IE services he/she wants to access. In many cases this will be the GA.

A sensor is any device, such as a video camera, water meter or bar-code reader that collects information in the outside world, converts it into computer format, and transmits it to the node or a terminal. A servo receives information from a computer and uses it to activate mechanisms in the outside world - open a valve, close a door, start and control an engine...

Users can mandate Ordifayes to bargain for them with other Ordifayes for instance in automatic auctions (E-Bay..), or with real individual users. Ordifayes will normally help users to compile agreement fabrics by doing file searches, checking for contradictions and inadequacies, incoherencies etc - and suggesting improvements

National constitutions are paper docu­ments that define how national laws will be defined. The GA similarly prescribes how its users formulate, use and annul agreements between each other. It has an internal programming language for de­fining electronic agreements known as ecords: elec­tronic accord records. Users begin to define agreements in e-pa­lavers with each other. They then enter into question-answer sessions with their Ordi­fayes to define and file them. Once such ecords have been ap­proved by all concerned, or their mandated representa­tives, they are activated, as required, for the functions they regulate.

Unlike national constitutions, the GA has no moral­iz­ing purpose. Its users are totally free to agree to do what­ever they want to do together. They can agree to co-oper­ate, be sharing and caring; or to disagree and cheat, kill each other in any way they want to. The GA is an or­gan­izational tool that helps them to do what they jointly agree to do very efficiently. What they want to do, and can do, is ultimately a matter of matching their needs and abilities to satisfy them (#5.4, #5.5). Ecord fabrics define and represent the IE's sub- and super-setting structures (individuals, departments, companies, communities.. (#5.3).

The GA normally creates three versions of an ecord. One is electronic for IE internal use. The other two are in written print-out, and spoken acoustic, formats. When ecords are ready for approval, the individual users con­cerned are normally requested to append their graphic and acoustic signatures - these may be pre-recorded and would be protected (#6.14). Users participating in an ecord will, in any case, be required to identi-click (#4.4) their approval. Users can mandate other users to represent them in ecord defini­tion and approval. Such a mandate is itself a mini-ecord. Mandatees and mandators must be logged in, identi-click and sign approvals. Mandates will normally be restricted in scope, duration and appli­cability- May only represent me in affairs pertaining to (Company-X, animal pro­tection...). A user might mandate ecord accep­tance powers to some managers of a department where he/she works. Some people might want to for­malize their com­mitments to each other by swearing on a holy book, praying together, holding hands in solemn assembly in particularly beauti­ful natural settings (power places) and imagining the futures they want to create.

IE file formats are known (#6). They can thus be processed in standard ways by ecords composed of stan­dardized regulations. Ordifayes ask standardized ques­tions of users and insist on answers that can be translated into standardized programs and data. The GA uses standardized answers and information from IE files to build ecords the way a compiler program converts instruc­tions coded in a programming language (ex BASIC) into machine lan­guage. Computers only understand ma­chine language. An ecord is a series of regulations as a computer program is a series of instructions.

Some management tools, such as the Project Evalua­tion and Review Technique (PERT) can be used to su­per­vise activities of people and machines, and the utili­zation of resources available to them. Once a project's activities, and the people and resources necessary to complete them, are known, the project can be started, and information on its progress reported to the PERT program that monitors it. This makes it possible to pre­dict the consequences of delays, breakdowns, strikes.., and to reassign people and resources so as to reduce their impacts on final activity termina­tions, deadlines and budg­ets. Ecords are comparable to PERT networks; regulations inside them to activities.

The Account Balancing Run is a complex ecord fabric that is normally activated when a node's internal clock strikes midnight. One of the first things this ecord does is to acti­vate regulations that inhibit access to those parts of those files that are used or modi­fied during the Balanc­ing Run. An person's death might activate an in­heritance distribution ecord. An ecord might be activated by a sensor detecting a fire.

IE users need not be concerned with regulation for­mats. Ordifayes ask them questions and build ecords composed of many regulations automatically. Regula­tion structure is discussed to explain how the GA works. Regulations have a standard format: (Name) activat­ing conditions,/ activation parameters,/ Op­eration/, resul­tant parameters,/ resultant conditions.

Activating conditions are usually determined by Ordi­fayes and pre­ceding regulations. They can be related by Boolean op­erators. The regulation is activated if they yield YES. Ex­ample: (IF) (c1):drought (AND) ((c2): leaves yellow (OR) ((c3): leaves brown (THEN) ((Op):water tree). (c1), (c2) and (c3) are activation con­ditions. (Op) is the operation/task to be performed. Acti­vation conditions might all be acti­vated. This re­sults in a command. The regulation then states water tree in any case. Activation conditions can all be de-activated im­plying a non-com­mandment. Do not ever water tree. Moses' last 5 com­mandments are non-commandments: Thou shalt not...

Activation Parameters specify how a regulation should be executed. Like activation conditions, they are often set by previous regulations and Ordifayes. A search might be rapid or detailed; certain fields in records might be ac­cess protected. A message might need to be encrypted or decrypted according to a parameter.. sent to one set of terminals or another.

The Operation is the task to be performed. The number of different types of operation that the GA can perform will be limited. An operation is a program that knows what it has to do from its activation conditions and pa­rameters. An operation might be: Sort a file - parame­ters would indi­cate which file on what fields. Another operation might be Search two files to find matching fields. Yet another: IF (Activat­ing conditions) THEN GO TO (name1) else GO TO (name2). Name1 and name2 are regulations else­where in the same ecord, or in other ecords. An operation normally sets Re­sulting Pa­rameters and Conditions elsewhere in the same ecord or in other ecords. Regulation names (ad­dresses) are com­piled into the other regulations that refer to them.

Resultant Parameters,/ Resultant Conditions are set as the regulation is executed.

A Regulation's Name is normally assigned by the GA when it builds an ecord. The GA also gives each new ecord a number. IEs and nodes within multi-nodal IEs are num­bered. This makes it possible to tie all the ecords in any set of IE communities together in an ecord fabric. Ecords and regulations inside them would probably also be identified by time and place of approval, approving entities, etc., to ease rapid access and indexing.

An ecord is a series of regulations defining tasks to be performed by the GA that is itself an ecord manage­ment and interpretation program package. It can be compared to a series of tasks given in a precise, dense language to be performed by some-one; also how those tasks should be performed. The instruction: Water the tree if its leaves are dry or brown would become ecord:

Regulation 1 (no activator) (Op: Interrogate humid­ity sensor)/ (resultant conditions set in Regulations 2, 3 and 4: ((c1): sensor not responding); ((c2): sensor indi­cates hu­midity below normal); ((c3): sensor indicates humidity above normal).

Regulation 2 (activator (c1): sensor not responding) / ((Op): send message and ring a bell at maintenance company terminal)

Regulation 3 ((c2) activator: humidity below nor­mal) AND NOT (irrigation valve open) (Op: control sequence to servo motor to open irrigation network valve)

Regulation 4 ((c3) activator: humidity at or above normal) (Op: control sequence to servo motor to close irriga­tion network valve) (activated condition: stop)

Regulation 5 (no activators) (Op: Interrogate irrigation valve open or closed)

Regulation 6 (activator: NOT stop) ((Op): Loop back to regulation 1)

Regulation 7 (No activator) (Op: control sequence to turn irrigation valve off)

When one ecord has completed, it activates the next in sequence. These can be prioritized by setting activa­tors. Low priority search, update and calculation ecords could be run at night or during weekends; high priority searches for dangerous mate­rials sales to dangerous people..), every hour. Some ecords would be able to interrupt others (to send earth­quake, tsunami warnings...). Several ecords could be processed more or less simultaneously, especially if parallel processors are available. Ecords can be self-modifying and self-annul­ling - permission to do this might be required from the users concerned.

Most ecords (company foundation, payment order contractual defini­tions..) will be built from standard model ('template') ecords. This makes it possible to check them individu­ally and together for contradictions and incoherencies within and between them. An ecord is self-contradic­tory if one of its regulations stipulates that a tree must be watered at the same time that another stipulates that it should not be watered. A personnel file is incoherent if one has only record stating that A is father of B; another that B is father of A. When the GA sets up a marriage contract, it can check if a man is not remarrying the same woman without an intervening divorce. An ecord is incomplete if one of its regulation states that a tree must be watered; none under what con­ditions by whom, or when.

Logic is one thing, compatibility another. It would be possible to search the property file (#6.9) for all pieces of land that have no, or several, owners, or for sewage out­lets the lead into drinking water inlets. The GA might find reasons why partnerships might not work - or work well. Contingency checklists can be es­tablished for founding various kinds of company (does a fruit farm need irrigation, does it have the right kind of soil for the trees? Will temporary help be needed at harvest time?...)

An ecord that has not yet been approved by all con­cerned, is a sort of working document that can help them to agree better and faster. As yet unborn ecords are placed in a file together with those that have been approved, but may not have been activated. As palavers are under way, partici­pants can ask their Ordifayes to search IE files for relevant data (Who was in on the last ecord? Is the land being sold close to a river?...). As work to­ward final agreement pro­gresses, the Ordifayes can use the GA can check for ecord in­co­herencies and inconsisten­cies - also with other ecords (You are planning a 6 sto­rey building in a region where zoning laws specify no more than 4). They can also begin to form draft agreements between each other - if users have not already done this, and to suggest improvements if they have. If users are planning to form a company, the GA can perform mar­ket surveys to to esti­mate how much each individual member of that company earn... scan the properties file for suitable compo­nents..., look for po­tential inves­tors... Such services would belong to kits or tem­plates that are used to formulate different stan­dardized types of company ecord (farm, bakery, aircraft, environment protection services... #5.5), con­tract (marriage, payment, employment, investment...)

Ecord construction may require establishing Trans­par­ency-Confidence restrictions (#6.14). Who would be mandated by whom to access or modify sensitive data? Pass through certain doors? Operate certain equip­ment...? Some ecords might refer to stan­dards and norms in the SN file (#6.13), or create others there for their own use. One company might prefer to use Stan­dard In­ternationale (m, kg) units; another English units (ft, lb). The GA could be asked to make ecords for con­verting measurements in one system into another. The members of one company might agree on Christian holi­days, another on a Muslim, Buddhist or 13month lunar calendar.

An ecord could be so constructed that it tells users when they can meet to work together. Some ecords could define norms for hospital personnel (wash hands before entering oper­ating room!) or construction work­ers (wear helmet under crane!). The difference between paper instructions and ecords is that ecords can tell some people (via identi-keys, terminals..) and control sensors to check if others actually do wash their hands and wear their helmets when they should - and activate exception procedures when they don't. A worker's Ordifaye might call a construction worker on his identi-key to tell him: This is the third time video cameras sensed you under a crane without a helmet. If he does it again, his salary will be reduced, the reduction split equally, and added to other workers' salaries - as per ecords he approved when he was hired. Many such stan­dards and norms could be scanned off existing paper documents and converted into ecords semi-automatically.

Once an ecord is complete, clean, and all concerned, or their mandators, have checked them out and identi-clicked, graphic and acoustic signed them to formalize their approval, the ecord is registered. Registering a company involves inserting it into the company files (#6.3 - #6.7...) open­ing its accounts, and adding an activator to the Account Balancing Run so that it is processed like others companies, and can be disactivated - for instance if the company reverts to a virtual state (#6.3).

Classical PERT projects are processed in isolation. The GA could treat a company like an ongoing project. It could monitor when people arrive at work and leave again, re­mind them when machines need preventive maintenance, control servos that check qualities of raw materials, semi- and finished products, make decisions what to do when people call in sick, machines break down, customers or suppliers change their minds, storms approach.. and re­calculate consequences on budgets, deadlines, etc. Nu­merous Ordifayes of many companies could inter-act to enable them to buy and sell, co-operate and compete most effi­ciently (#5.4, #5.5). Each node has a single GA that con­trols as many Ordifayes as are needed to serve online us­ers. Inter-nodal commu­nications would probably be via the internet and other existing means until multinodal IEs develop (#5.3)

The GA has several procedures that allow its users to combine to heal pathological behaviour. One of them is tariffs (#4.10). Say some one's Ordifaye reveals that Mr X contributed nothing to environmental protection, and little to other public services. This person could convince other people and companies to set high sales tariffs on all goods, rights or services they sell to Mr X. Their added income from sales to Mr X will be contributed to environmental protection and other public services that the tariff setters want to help. Tariffs are associated with messages that can be read by all of the IE's users. Mr X and his friends could set tariffs against the tariff-setters. That will do him no good if he has few friends and has, in fact, been spending most of his income on himself. He will then contribute more, either directly or indirectly.

The IE can be used to set up legal systems with policemen, detectives, arbitrators, lawyers, judges and retributors (#5.6) who reward or punish according to judgements. Such justice is a public service. Its funding is basically voluntary. Tariffs and other expedients can be used by majorities to get minorities to contribute fairly. But such justice a system easily becomes a racket. When policemen start running protection-prostitution rackets, and spending worthless tokens into circulation so others can pay for their services, they are starting a new intrinsic value money economy. It is now fairly well known what sort of justice that leads to.

There is no way of preventing some men from wanting to acquire power over others. A society may need a single chain of command that responds with speed and secrecy if that society is in conflict or danger (approaching asteroid..). This usually requires according a great deal of power to a single leader or to a small junta - they are presumably the ablest, wisest, most intelligent people available for the job. A monopoly to lead becomes a racket when it starts to exploit those led for its own benefit. Leaders deserve compensation equal to the relative value of their services. They tend to become useless parasites once their services are no longer needed, or when they start to over-charge for those services. Practically all community services can become rackets - one of the oldest is irrigation - and, indirectly, nutrition via farms that depend on it. Now we have genetic modification, starvation and codex alimentation. Health can be racketted for hospitalization, medication (enforced vaccination, hypocratic operation, sterilization and elimination). Salvation can be racketted for indoctrination, stupidification, inquisition. Industrialization rackets consumption, transportation and power generation that spread pollution and desertification. Communication and computation are being used for domination, extortion and infiltration by wire-tapping and brain-washing . And so it goes.

There is usually an element of foolish good-naturedness in the people who allow exploited, then enslaved, by rackets. Provisions can be made before a war begins for deposing, or disposing of leaders of unnecessary power once it is over. The GA's mandation procedures will normally include de-mandation. This can be automatic and agreed on by all belligerents. War over: generals pensionned, arms industries on stand-by. We might not now be in danger of collective nuclear extermination if such agreements had been made before WWII. That would probably have been impossible given the way wars were engineered in the 20^th century.

Professional do-gooders tend to become public nuisances. They must be dealt with as soon as their powers begin to become pathological. That is when known symbolized 'good' eclipses real good of which the community is not aware. The IE helps its users to realize when some links of all possible gains get more resources than are needed while others are starved of funding. It is possible to combine against incipient rackets by not paying any more for any services than they are really worth compared to all others, and by taking all possible risks into consideration.(#5.6, #5.7). It is also possible to set up competing services whenever small monopolies start to become big rackets. Though the IE can help alert its users to the dangers of racketeering, and to deal with them efficiently, machines are not creative or intuitive. It is ultimately up to living people to realize when their social order is beginning to slip out of balance and re-med-y (re-balance) the situation creatively.

The GA cannot eliminate murder, theft, rape or other so-called crimes. What it can do, is to help its users create an order in which they can so balance their resources that the dangers and costs of being a-bombed to from another continent, killed by a neighbour, or infected by a bedbug are comparable. All concerned can invest their resources to lose least and gain most taking all possible resources, gains and losses into account. The less they are racketted, the more freedoms, time, enjoyment of living they gain. This implies never allowing any power to percolate 'up' any higher than necessary.

Natural balances include murder, theft, cheating, rape. When wolves eat rabbits that eat grass, all remain in healthy balance. Male rivalry is necessary if the fittest are to survive most. Animals, even of the same species, do steal from each other. Cats 'cheat' by hiding behind rocks to catch mice - many parasites cheat far more cleverly to get into hosts and live inside them. None of this is anybody else's business.

The IE can help do away with all of the cheating and corruption of intrinsic value money - hence eliminate the dangers of environmental collapse. It can also create a World Without War (#5.7) in which there is least suffering and killing. We could be producing abundant water, food, energy, fertilizer, living space.. if we were not wasting our effort, creativity, intelligence in useless conflict and confusion. Even so, there will come a time when the earth will not be able to carry more human beings in balance with other species. Zero population growth would imply weeding out more of the least viable - as in nature. We might also carry earth life elsewhere in the universe.

Such efforts to enter outer space could be more successful if preceded by adventures into inner space. Our minds are now much cluttered with junk - indoctrination, advertising, propaganda - some subliminal, much instilled into us from the moment we are born by inducing and exploiting fears, ambitions, neuroses, complexes, self-conflicts and psychoses. The racket with which the racketeers fill our minds will subside as we balance all accounts and purposes in our societies more continuously and completely. Our minds might then occasionally enter that state of junk-free, unprogrammed awareness in which telepathic communication with the life around us becomes possible. Telepathic internet-working between many species, possibly even crystals and other inanimate substances, could form an earth body that is vastly more capable of spreading its life into the universe than humanity alone would be. That journey begins by programming systems like the IE, and forming small communities that use prices, but no money with intrinsic value.