A “Dangerous” Playbook

for Governing Power and Creating a Thriving Society

How to Survive and Thrive in a turbulent world with dangerous rivalries

The most dangerous man to any government is a man who is able to think things out for himself, and without regard for the prevailing superstitions and taboos.

- H. L. Mencken (1922).

I hear people argue about their rights, sometimes as victims, sometimes as bullies, but very often in a confusing, reactionary way

Which started me thinking ... 

  • If rights are self-evident, then why do we have so many disputes? 

  • If we are endowed with rights by our creator, then whose creator? 

  • Is claiming that some rights are "natural" just a non-religious view of "God said so"?

  • If someone says "We just should ..." is that the same as "I wish..."?

Perhaps naively, I decided to make a clean start, beginning with four observations:

1) We all want to survive and thrive

2) But it is a dangerous world and we can't do it alone

3) So we join groups - families, clans, nations, churches, businesses, ....

4) However, other groups are trying to take my land, my food, my gold, my loved ones... so we must constantly stay competitive

So, what are the most appropriate rights that allow the individual as well as the group to survive and thrive in a competitive, dangerous world?

How would we structure this society? 

How would we govern power within it, balancing the individual with the group?

While working on this, at times Russia, Argentina, and Venezuela have seemed on the brink of collapse. If their people could start over, what would I recommend? Or what if the EU wanted to act more like a Nation than a Federation? 

That's what this is about. It's still a work in progress. I encourage feedback via my Substack

There is no index, but most slides and chapters are cross referenced. A code like (C123) references Conversation 123 within my notes and (L105) references Lesson Learned 105 in the lessons deck. Just do a find within the file to get to the right spot

  • A much longer slide based summary (download pdf)

  • A summary of the lessons learned from examining other societies, nations, teams, businesses, etc. (download pdf)

  • A one slide decomposition of the main ideas (download pdf)

  • All of my notes and supporting references, semi-edited

  • A TLDR of my notes, perhaps easier to search for basic ideas here (download pdf)

  • Definitions and terminology I've used (download pdf)

  • How some sample policies align to the Agreements (download pdf)

  • A timeline I built. Not really pertinent, but I had to create it to understand some of the historical relationships (download pdf)

I'm experimenting with an AI interface, perhaps Google’s NotebookLM, since there is no index or FAQ, but it hasn't worked well since my notes contain extensive excerpts, some dead ends and some bad ideas. The AI's can't tell positions I agree with from those I don't