Abstract
The model of the global governance body presented in this paper will reflect the time in which it is created, the age of information, decentralization and disruption.
The goals the global governance body will aim to achieve are to raise individual awareness and build a network as a short-term goal, establish legal background and opening a path for legal sanctions as a mid-term goal and providing sustainable governance as a long-term goal. The concept introduces a body that will facilitate the process of decision-making and taking actions toward achieving sustainability worldwide, taking into considerations differences between the countries, diversities among the regions and the core interest of the general population.
What will characterize this concept is the broadest possible coalition of individuals, communities, informal groups, organizations, science etc., joined in a self-regulated and fluid structure powered by concepts like holacracy, common based peer production, crowdsourcing etc. Open information, public involvement and metrics are the basis of this concept. The model will introduce reputation system as a control mechanism for every information and participant in the process, whether that be observed entity or an employee. The disruption that this model proposes comes from the shift from the closed and institutionalized approach in decision-making which current organizations practice to an open and self-regulated system which this model will embrace. The outcome will be shifting the power and the decision-making process from nation states to municipalities, communities and individuals, where the check and balances system and the implementation itself will be open and inclusive, aiming to benefit from every resource available.
The model has in mind the current global constellation in which the state sovereignty is indisputable so without state’s voluntarily cooperation no global threats can be addressed properly. This is why this model takes the bottom up approach in addressing the global threats by relying on individual actions fueled by truthful and unbiased information, knowledge and education. The main goal is not to directly impose decisions and directions to governments but to empower individuals for both conducting socially responsible behavior and initiating active participation in the governing processes. The model will provide a platform which will generate solutions and through which societies and individuals can consume information, gain knowledge and utilize collaboration, as well as tools through which this information can directly affect the societies and address global threats.
Organizational wise this model will consist of one n-dimensional institution — Global governance body (GGB) that will have horizontal structure and will be supported by massive IT infrastructure. The sufficiency of this one institution system comes from the fluid, decentralized and generic structure it will have. The need from this kind of structure comes from the requirement, one organism for all the threats to humanity.
GGB will be consisted of two main bodies:
1. Representative body: will be consisted of the founders of the GGB, will represent the GGB on pro bono basis and have only advisory role in the decision-making process. As part of the representative body at the beginning there will be an initiation board, with task to implement the initial structure of the GGB, provide funding and assemble recruitment and administrative stuff and will be dismissed as soon as the infrastructure of the GGB become self-sufficient and functional.
2. Professional body: will be the managing and decision-making body with powers to issue recommendations and define actions to be taken. Professional body will consist of eight units and one decision-making board: Cooperation unit, Information unit, Technology unit, Scientific unit, PR unit, Field unit, Administration unit and Finance unit, each of them having specific competence and structure, described in detail later in the paper. The decisions will be made on separate sessions of the decision-making board where each unit will have its own representative. These representatives will have one year mandates.
Free and unbiased information is the essence of this model, so the whole structure of the GGB is designed to support and protect the lifecycle of information, that being: locating — done by the cooperation unit, providing and validating — done by the information unit, storing — done by technology unit, processing — done by the science unit and the distribution of information — done by the PR and field unit. The administration and finance unit will make sure this process has strong logistic and financial support.
The decision-making process in the proposed model is scientific and metric based and is a result of cooperation among units. The decision-making board will be issuing recommendations and will be proposing actions to be taken on bases of scientific and multidisciplinary opinions provided by the scientific unit. Agreed actions are then enforced by the field and PR unit. The whole process will be strongly supported by the technology unit with IT infrastructure, software solutions, algorithms and AI.
The final goal of the GGB in addressing the global threats is to make socially responsible, moral and ethical behavior a standard which will increase the well-being of the people, since insufficiency of these values is in close relation with the existence of global threats. By publicly exposing governments, corporations, individuals etc. which work against the public good the GGB will put pressure on those entities and the pressure itself will have impact on the societies and on individual and corporate behavior. Since corporations work for profit, governments are voted by the people, individuals act and live in communities public information about their misbehavior in meeting the standards in certain area will lower their revenue, will influence elections or will impact individual’s social capital.
At the beginning the GGB will take the existing regulations as a base for evaluation, but as a mid-term objective is improving these regulations, while a long-term objective is creation of unbiased regulations. Moreover, the model addresses threats that go beyond the ones stated in the competition memo like information censorships, biased and influenced scientific researches, uncontrolled AI development etc.
Description of the Model
1. Overview
The model that will be described finds its generic nature in the fact that it will not address the threats to the humanity individually but it will address the reasons behind these threats. This paper finds the phenomenon of power, corruption, profit and lack of education as main reasons behind the threats against humanity.
The concept presented will reside on a bottom up model, or better said enhanced two directional model with improved check and balances system as a solution. The center point of this model will be the individuals, since they have double role and are found on both side of the process: they are the ones that possess the power and are being ruled, they are both labor force and consumers, as well as being a threat themselves and not using their power to control and monitor other threats. The duality of individuals will be exploited in the model as well. Individual participation, contribution and involvement will be expected both in the GGB and in the community as the model identifies this activities to be essential for the societies and individuals to keep up with the technology and address power accumulation and present and future threats. The GGB will try to adequately respond to the information centric digital age by providing information distribution which will create equal conditions for everyone, as well as by redefining and repositioning individual’s role in the future society, powered by knowledge and participation.
The GGB’s mission will be to emphasize individual omnipresence, raise individual awareness about its importance and power, provide truthful information and provide tools and methodologies through which individuals can affect societies and have direct approach to democracy. Thus, the GGB will not be a governance model on top of the nation states, which is the case now, but rather will use the power of the public in addressing the problems from within. It will not imply solutions on the states, but will raise awareness and encourage individuals to make pressure on companies and governments and demand changes that affect their wellbeing. So, the task force for implementation of the findings and recommendations of the GGB will be the people, whose vote will be based on raised awareness and true information and will use services and products based on the social responsibility of the enterprises and governments. A concept based on these principles will challenge the axis of power, profit and corruption which are the reasons underlying threats to humanity. The main point of the model is power decentralization and distribution and not power aggregation.
Since the GGB will have the information and knowledge as its main assets, the whole structure of the organization will be in support of locating, providing, validating, storing, processing and distributing information. Source of information can be any entity including organizations, groups, individuals etc. This information will go through process of validation and will be stored by the GGB. A blockchain infrastructure, as immutable distributed data ledger infrastructure will be used for storing the information used and produced by the GGB, guaranteeing its consistency. The amount of data stored in this ledger will be enormous and software algorithms will be used to detect patterns of behavior and recognize activities that might lead to present or future threats to humanity. These leads together with other relevant information will go through a thorough process of research which will result with GGB’s opinion and recommendation on the matter. Although they weren’t mentioned as threats to humanity, fake news, censored researchers and biased science papers should make to the very top of the list. The battle for power in the digital age is about who owns the information. The GGB will strive towards the open data concept. Recent encounters showed exactly how fake data can influence public perception and on the other hand how powerful is individual vote in providing the coveted outcome and influence society. This is exactly where the GGB will look for its purpose and from where results will be expected, educated and aware citizens with unbiased information at disposal.
Taking this approach brings new challenges to the table. The decentralization and distribution will need to be coordinated and synchronized. Trust needs to be built among participants and towards the GGB. Contribution and involvement needs to be propagated. The inclusiveness will seek control mechanism for validation and truthfulness. Transparency needs to be managed and supported. Efficiency needs to be measured and advocated. Education needs to be provided. Information distribution channels created. Funds needs to be raised. Infrastructure needs to be built. Independence and competence provided. Field activities organized. Network established. And most important of all, this concept needs to become and stay self-sustainable.
The concept will be built by assembling methodologies from similar concepts in other fields and will use infrastructure already existent and created by similar purpose organizations. If we look for implementations of decentralization, individuals and platform we’ll run into the concept of shared economy (also known as collaborative economy, platform economy, gig economy, peer to peer economy, on demand economy etc.). Shared economy rose out of the economic meltdown in 2007 which resulted with people’s loss of trust towards the established authorities, which pretty much resembles the reasons behind the GGB initiative. By taking this path of avoiding the central authorities lots of platforms that were embracing peer to peer collaboration were developed. These platforms implemented some old methodologies and created new to support this trend.
Just like in the shared economy (and other similar concepts), trust building and determining the trustworthiness of the peers will be one of the main challenges of the GGB. Since GBB will address the phenomenon of corruption, it should rely on a system that will provide unbiased opinions and recommendation and efficient mechanism for determining and establishing trust not only in the people working in the GGB, but in the recommendations and other types of decisions issued by the GGB. Reputation systems are programs that allow users to rate each other in communities in order to build trust through reputation. The GGB and the public will rate everything that enters the system, information, source, subject, employee etc. Every activity will be rated, either that be the concerned parties or within the organization. This process will be strongly supported by IT solutions. The idea is to create an eco-system with entities which incentive will be to contribute and to be fair. Every information that will be validated will get its rate, every source which sends information, every volunteer, every employee, every subject of interest will be rated. These ratings will be open to the public, so people can draw conclusions over the trustfulness and credibility of certain source of information for example. The reputation system in time will provide information about trustworthiness of people, contributors, governments etc. Any entity which will have low ratings will be considered less reliable and credible by the public and it will lead towards diminished trust in them, thus influencing their powers.
Information that will be processed in the GGB will not come from one source only. The model will implement crowdsourcing and common based peer production concepts in achieving this goal. Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining information or input into a task or project by enlisting the services of a large number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet (ex. Wikipedia). Common based peer production describes a new model of socioeconomic production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively, usually over the Internet (ex. Linux operating system). These two concepts reside on contribution and on self-regulated mechanism on establishing best solution, which will also be implemented in the GGB’s interaction with the communities and the outside network, as well as in some internal processes. For inside organization GGB will reside on holacracy as a model. Holacracy is a method of decentralized management and organizational governance, in which authority and decision-making are distributed throughout a holarchy of self-organizing teams rather than being vested in a management hierarchy. Avoiding hierarchical structures where applicable is one of the ways of how GGB will fight corruption and influence within the organization.
GGB will use both already existing network of people and organizations and will create new in the process of information gathering and distribution. The GGB will need a great network and great flow of information if it wants to become relevant and to have the ability to fight the already established practices, power centers and processes in the society. The relevancy and efficiency of this contributors and networks will be also rated and remunerated. Decentralized and distributed access will guarantee that GGB will not become just one more highly administrative, over regulated body with cumulated power but it will be like giant data base of gathered, validated and scientifically processed information upon which people will be making their own decisions. Thus, GGB will need information distribution channels and strong network of allies that will raise the awareness of the people and will in a way educate them about the global threats and the ways people can contribute in the fight against global threats. One of the reason why GGB will use the already established networks and organizations is not only because of the cooperative moments, finding allies and mapping the likeminded engagers, but also to reduce costs. One of the most common ways of channeling influence and becoming dependent is through financial dependency. Bigger the financial independency is, the more unbiased the outcome is. That is one of the reasons why the GGB will utilize outside contributors and networks, as well as optimize internal processes and structure.
GGB will introduce new ways of funding as well, like crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies, both of them decentralized and distributed concepts used by the digital age proponents. Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people. A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and to control the creation of additional units of the currency. GGB will issue its own cryptocurrency. A fraction of the payments towards contributors and employees will be done by cryptocurrency i.e. the mining will be done through contribution and will be closely connected with the rating system. The reputation system and the cryptocurrency will be the main mechanism in building the spiral of independent and parallel ecosystem within the societies. Enterprises which will accept this cryptocurrency will become part of the GGB, and will be better rated. More people and organization participate in GGB network more enterprises will want them as customers. Since GGB will generate profit for contributors, people will have incentive to participate and to advocate socially responsible behavior.
2. Structure
GGB structure will mimic society and will implement the same mechanisms which will be propagated to societies as reputation system, contribution, knowledge shearing etc. In its structure, the GGB will have two main bodies: Representative body and Professional body.
2.1. Representative body (RB)
The representative body will be consisted of the founders of the GGB and will represent the GGB on pro bono basis having only advisory role in the decision-making process.
As part of the representative body at the beginning there will be initiation board, with task to implement the initial structure of the GGB, provide funding and assemble recruitment and administrative stuff and will be dismissed as soon as the infrastructure of the GGB become self-sufficient and functional.
A representative from RB can take part in the daily meetings of the Professional body.
2.2. Professional body (PB)
The PB will have few roles: decision-making role, advisory role, coordination role and management role. As a part of the Professional body there will be eight different units and a decision-making board. Generally, the internal unit structure will be holacratic and will rely on reputation systems and personal achievement. A separate body will be formed ad hoc in cases where the holacracy doesn’t find solution. Coordinative body within every unit will exist and will communicate with other units in synchronizing the activities. There will be as many coordinative bodies within one unit as the number of units in GGB with which the unit will interact. Telecommuting, co-working spaces and bring your device concepts will be massively used as cost reduction methodologies, as long as it is applicable and it doesn’t affect unit’s efficiency.
The PB’s decision-making board will be constituted by representatives from every unit. Each unit shall have one representative. The unit representatives will be nominated by the unit themselves and by the ratings provided by the reputation system. The members of this body will rotate on yearly basis and will overlap with the mandate i.e. every unit will change their representative in separate month. In this way, every employee of the GGB will have the chance to participate in the work of the decision-making board and learn from the experience. As time goes by the GGB members will gain broader knowledge and become more useful to the organization. The challenges presented and the opportunity to learn will bring double benefit to the organization, one is retaining the employees and the other is the possibility to substitute the employees that will leave. One of the ways the opponents of the GGB will try to reduce GGB’s efficiency is by luring its employees.
The decision-making board will make decisions upon voting. All votes have equal importance and are counted one vote per unit. If the result is draw, the final decision is made based on the metrics provided by the AI. The board will have regular meetings on daily bases and every vote made by a representative will be rated by the unit he/she represents. Diminishment in the reputation of the unit representative may lead to his/hers change in the board.
The decisions are made in form of recommendations. PB can also decide for undertaking field activities. Before deciding, the PB will take into consideration the verified information and all other relevant imputes from other units.
The PB’s job will also be to anticipate the trends and actions that would lead to threats to humanity and determine the entities behind these actions. These entities will be publically announced. The PB will give recommendation on how this new threats can be addressed and how the entities behind them can be sanctioned by the public. The short term sanctions will be implicit and that would be to inform the public about the misconducting entities and provide the public with knowledge and tools to address them, may that be legal advices, tools for fighting corruption and influence political outcomes, or put pressure on enterprises which lack social awareness and responsibility. The mid-term goal is to provide transparent, global and unbiased judiciary system which will have the global health as its main concern and will be deprived of influence and lobby. The long term goal is to create a self-sustainable system and produce new generations with social awareness and responsibility as their core values.
The PB will communicate with the representative body for consultancy and building a unified opinion on the general direction of the GGB.
2.2.1. Cooperation unit (CU)
The model of the GGB described in this paper is strongly dependent on the networking capabilities of the organization. GGB’s strength is proportional with the number of the information providers, contributors and distribution endpoints it has. The CU is the unit which will create this network by locating the sources and providing an interface through which GGB will communicate with these entities. These sources may be: educational institutions, Ngo’s, think tanks, journalists, informal organizations, corporations, scientist, research centers, professionals, governments, municipalities, platforms and organizations, UN, individuals etc. These entities will be incorporated in the GGB workflow as information providers, contributors, as well as distribution endpoints and on field collaborators. CU will also negotiate the terms by which the cooperation will take place.
The unit will consist of professionals from different fields: social sciences, lawyers, economists etc. Part of this unit will be located in the headquarters and part will be distributed all over the world. The unit will be fractioned in departments based on type of the network it will cover i.e. at which stage the entity will participate. Geolocation will be another attribute by which the unit will be structured as culture has an important role in communication and negotiation practices.
2.2.2. Information unit (IU)
The IU’s function will be to provide and validate the information coming from the network. After the interface with the network is negotiated and the channels built, the IU will take over and provide support and infrastructure for free information flow. The providing of the information will be a crowdsourcing powered concept.
The most important task of the information unit will be to validate the truthfulness of the information provided. It will be done partly by software that will cross match previous and current information and partly by members of this unit. Every information and every source will be rated by this unit. More true information one source provides, more relevant their information is. These ratings will be publically available and will be important tool in providing the society with metrics about people’s trustworthiness, social awareness and responsibility. The rating system will be one of the biggest tools against corruption and influence as well. Outside contributors will also have the possibility to rate certain information, give their opinion and discuss on the matter.
The IU will have to fight the current threat of fake data and AI software will be provided for that purpose. The output of the IU will be relevant data. As side value of the process will be information on source relevancy.
The UI unit will consist of professionals from different fields: IT, social sciences, mathematics, psychologists etc.
2.2.3. Technology unit (TU)
After the initiation, providing and validating information, one of the responsibilities of TU, among many others, will be information storage. The GGB will use the blockchain technology for data storage, as the distributed nature and openness of this technology fits perfectly into GGB concept. Every piece of information, either that be public information or internal information, rating system, contribution, decisions and other will be put in the blockchain. Its immutability will be one of the weapons against corruption and influence.
Also, the TU will provide every piece of software the GGB will need: for internal purposes, the pipeline for managing information, for synchronization with the other networks, platform for its own network, its own social network built on the blockchain information, rating system software, support for all PR activities, its own cryptocurrency, news feed, AI, support for external purposes like providing technical infrastructure for communities to benefit from, etc.
The TU will have to provide mechanism for detecting biased algorithms within the GGB. It’s very easy for the GGB to lose its ground when technology and information are at stake. So, all its structure will be in line with providing everyday control, if possible a distributed control over its activities. The TU will mimic the open source community in securing constant monitoring system over its work, implementing the open source community principles (ex. common based peer production) in the processes and through contribution, checks, alters and controls develop the software solutions.
GGB will introduce its own IT personal within the TU. The structure and the quantity of the in-house IT stuff will be most robust because of its wide use within the GGB. There will be department for every of its responsibilities stated before, as well as a core architect team which will make decisions on the general architecture and directions.
TU will be the backbone of the GGB and every aspect of its work must be at the highest level. The security of the system must be on top level as well since it will be target for every power and profit center. The whole relevancy of the GGB lies on the TU performance. The system will be robust and must be live at all times. Engaging wider network and having the best IT professionals on board will be crucial.
2.2.4. Science unit (SU)
The SU will be a scientific and professional body which will resemble research center. It will be fueled by the information provided. SU responsibilities will be to analyze and process information, conduct research, advise and give support to the communities.
Horizontally the SU will be consisted of dozen specialized departments which will be determined by the problems they solve and the area in which the problem resides. The departments will be: legal, economic, environmental, natural sciences, social sciences etc. Apart from these specialized departments there will be interdisciplinary departments, which will be made of interdisciplinary professionals, scientists and researchers, part of them working only in these interdisciplinary departments and part of them working in the specialized departments.
In the SU the decisions will be made and the opinions will be given in two stages. In the first stage, the specialized departments will analyze the data and give their opinion on the matter from their own perspective. In the second stage, the interdisciplinary departments, having in mind the opinions of the specialized departments, will give opinions about the issues in a wider context.
GGB will offer not only opinions and advice but will also provide different forms of support to interested parties (ex. draft legislative solutions, exchange know how, provide software support, prepare educational material etc.). This process will be heavily supported by IT infrastructure and AI software.
Professional community and the network will be included in the work of this unit. Inputs from local scientists, legislators, environmentalists, economists etc. will be expected and taken into consideration. Contribution in this stage of the process will be professionally determined. All contributors will be incorporated into the system, by rating and remuneration.
The output that this unit will provide will be in direction of feeding the communities and individuals with knowledge and support in addressing their problems. Every information, conclusion and directive will be stored into the blockchain and presented to the public through various channels. This way the GGB, by providing high level of transparency, will build its reputation, raise awareness and address the problems while still in starting phase.
2.2.5. Public relation unit (PRU)
PU’s will consist of three departments: department for GGB promotion, department for information distribution, educational department and a coordination body. The success of the GGB will significantly depend of the PRU success. The creation of the network, creation of public trust and promoting values to society will be the main focus of this unit.
• Department for promoting GGB — this department will set ground for creating the network. Building the image of the GGB in the public will play crucial role in creating this network. People trust will come in time with the results, but the initial interaction with the public will be done through this department. This department will create campaigns about the values which the GGB promotes. It will explain to the public how it functions and how will it improve people’s wellbeing. This department will need to locate the channels through which this promotions and campaigns will execute and create the content for it. This unit will have great challenge ahead because it will go against the current mainstream concepts of centralized power, profit above all, consumerism etc.
• Department for information distribution — this department will distribute the results from the GGB work. It will provide channels and platforms for information distribution. Special challenge will be the distribution of the science unit opinions and final GGB recommendation, since it is quite likely that the solutions recommended will go against already established authorities. This department will have strong science support in presenting the solutions, directions and possible misinterpretations. Also, targeting all the interested entities and designing a strategy for increasing the impact of the GGB work will fall under the duties of this department.
• Educational department — this department will work on raising awareness of the public about the threats to humanity and will introduce tools and methodologies to address them. The department will work on raising awareness about participation and personal responsibility in providing better future for the humanity. It will give educational courses about detecting, preventing and fighting global challenges, from emphasizing the individual power and tools to influence decisions to actual steps and how they can be implemented. It will introduce the 5R methods, the sustainable concepts, the renewable energy trends, the government monitoring technics etc. This department will be closely working with the field unit since part of the education will be held on field. As time passes and the infrastructure gets created the GGB will aim to introduce these educational concepts to the public education. This department will be getting its content from the science unit which will extract education material from its work and provide the educational department with the content. This department will cooperate with the cooperation unit in getting the municipalities onboard and provide modern, relevant and unbiased content for their educational system.
• Coordinative body — this body will try to coordinate the internal departments, as well as provide interface for interacting with other departments. The big part of the GGB success will come from a proper promotion. The strategy for public presentation will come from this department. The main role of this coordinative body will be coordination of the information distribution, providing channels for information and knowledge flow from other departments and articulate it to the public. It will be a robust body, since everything that other departments will provide as input will have to be processed and distributed through this body and delegated to the other departments. This coordinative body will consist of employees from the other departments.
PRU will consist of marketing, psychology, social, educational professionals etc. Apart from internal organization, this unit will have great support from the public and external contributors. It will have strong relation with the cooperation unit in locating the information channels through which it will distribute its content, as well as provide additional channels within separate countries which will support the information distribution. The decision-making process will be done within the unit. The final decision and the overall strategy will be approved by the Professional Body.
2.2.6. Field unit (FU)
The FU will be consisted of main coordinative body and regional sectors which will provide on field information and implement GGB’s recommendations. The main coordinative body will be based in the GGB headquarters and will work closely with other units in building the overall strategy for undertaking field actions.
The FU regional sectors will not hold any offices, but will heavily use co-working spaces or other organizations facilities. Every day communication will be held by VOIP (voice over IP) unless it is not possible. This telecommute infrastructure will be provided by the GGB. The members of the FU use their own devices for which they will be compensated. This will all go in line with the waste reduction and finance reduction which will provide better financial independence.
Goals of this unit will be: to lobby in governments and municipalities and to provide institutional and formal channels for GGB entry, to provide on-field information about local culture and trends, organize local communities in a broader network for on-field activities and support the on-field activities. This unit will coordinate its work with the other units of the GGB in expanding the network channels and build and extend the platform for new entities. The overall mission is to help build awareness at the local population and give face to the GGB. This unit will have reginal coordinators and it will be consisted partly of GGB employees and partly of contributors.
2.2.7. Finance unit (FNU)
The FU unit will provide and distribute funds for the GGB. Its main role will be to balance GGB sheets and utilize the digital age in doing so. The FU will assign value for every activity of its employees and its contributors and will remunerate in money, cryptocurrency and social reputation.
FU will use funds raised from philanthropist and crowdfunding sessions. These involvements will be adequately transformed into reputation points. GGB will issue a cryptocurrency which will be another way of paying the contributors and the employees. The wage structure will be a combination of cryptocurrency, money and rating. The enterprises which will receive cryptocurrency as a payment method will also be rated as contributors. Creating this chain, the GGB will tend to raise the numbers of contributors and enterprises, which will lead to wider use of its independent currency and pave the way for independent monetary system. The financial independence will be the basis for unbiased decisions and information.
All parameters which will determine the financial structure will be assessed and determined by the Professional Body and implemented by the Technology unit. The income stream of the GGB will be strongly supported and supplemented by the overall GGB structure, concepts and mechanisms which are cost efficient and will reduce GGB financial dependence, such as: use of co-working space, contributions, personal and social reputation as incentive, free marketing for the enterprises which will accept GGB’s cryptocurrency, process automation, community involvement, networking, telecommunicating etc.
The FU will strive to provide financial independence throughout its existence and find new ways of funding like introducing global tax at some stage and above all, new ways of acquiring value and incorporate it in the system. Defining these new ways will be in coordination with all other units. This unit will consist of professionals within the company.
2.2.8. Administrative unit (AU)
The AU will be completely in-house unit and will oversee the logistic, procurements, HR and administrative matters. Each of these activities will have their own department. The HR department will have important role in the process initialization, when the initial team will be assembled. From then on, most, but not all of the recruitment will be done through the contributor’s reputation system. The unit will be based in the headquarters and will have its own structure and hierarchy.
This will be the only unit where hierarchy will be applied. It will be in constant coordination with the finance unit since the finance unit will provide assets for the AU activities. The AU will be part of the professional body as any other department and it will be represented by the AU management.
2.3. Main challenges
Main challenges of this concept are to address threats by authoritarian governments which censor information and lack democratic culture and processes, as well as extremely poor societies which doesn’t hold infrastructure for gathering, sharing and information distribution.
Since the whole concept revolves around interaction with individuals and communities within countries, this type of political systems will be approached separately by the GGB. In the countries where there is no infrastructure for information sharing the Field Unit will be have the main role in providing and establish infrastructure and ways of interacting with the communities. Since there are organization which are already working on these matters and have established networks in these countries, important task for the GGB is to provide close collaboration with this organizations in meeting its goals.
The authoritarian regimes will be affected by outside pressure like it is the case now, but the GGB will target wider audience than governments and corporations in providing this, it will target the communities and individuals too. For example: if some government is faking the data about gas emission and pollution, the GGB will publish the true data provided by the communities. Then, the corporation which provide resources from this country, or from particular vendor in this country, will be pinpointed by the GGB as socially irresponsible corporation. The public and consumers will put pressure on this corporation by boycotting their products. The same goes for corporation and governments which use child labor etc. The resulting actions by the GGB will be the same as the ones that are applied today (economic sanction and isolation), but it will be based on raised individual awareness and education.
The whole process will take some time to have its first effects. The complete social turnaround can be expected when the values of the GGB and humanity will be implemented in the educational process and when individuals will be educated on bases of these values and principles.
3. Assessment criteria
3.1. Core Values
GGB’s fundamental believes are that only distributed governance based on objective and true information, minimized corruption and individual involvement can provide sustainable and responsible governing. In order to provide this environment, the society needs to focus on raising the awareness of individuals and provide quality education by emphasizing social responsibility and correlate it to global threats. GGB will play significant part in providing platform for information and knowledge distribution which will support the process of education. The platform will also be used for providing tools and mechanisms to utilize the gained knowledge. Social capital and social contribution will be the core values of the GGB and of the future society.
Individual participation and contribution will be promoted and supported by free access to data, knowledge and transparency of the decision-making process. By doing so the GGB will address present threats like power centralization and corruption and future threats like raised inequality based on restricted knowledge, automated working processes, biased information and illiteracy. GGB recognizes individual interdisciplinarity as a trend upon which future societies and labor market will reside and strongly supports it and incorporates it in its model. GGB’s internal system tends to resemble the future world it wants to build, so the practices and initiatives which it propagates are applicable and useful on both ends.
The opinions, recommendations and guidelines provided by the GGB will be in line with providing sustainability whether that be economic, social, political, environmental etc., respecting the equality of all individuals and their needs. After the initiation period and positive feedback from the public, the GGB will aim to constitute a global judiciary system which will have the humanity as its client.
3.2. Decision-Making Capacity
The architecture and the structure of the GGB finds its primary goal in maximizing the decision-making capacity of the organization. The whole GGB structure is built in that way in which it provides massive amount of valid data in support of the decision-making process and then distribute the outcome to the public. The GGB will strongly rely on science and metrics and produce outcome which will be liberated from biased input, fake data and from political influence and lobbying. The nonhierarchical structure of the GGB, the reputation system implemented, the technology used, the openness and the transparency are the mechanisms which will support this claim. The opinions, decisions and directives provided by the GGB will not be arbitrary. They will be science papers with metrics, solutions and detected entities behind the threats to humanity. The GGB will have facilitating role in the process of decisions, but the decision itself will be left to the people and societies. GGB will have its focus on raising public awareness and education, as well as provide tools and mechanisms for more frequent and direct people’s involvement in the decision implementation.
The decision-making process within the GGB will be strongly supported by technology and AI, as well as by professionals from external institutions. The opinions and recommendations that GGB will produce will be tightly connected with geolocation and culture and have into consideration the myriad of different needs people and societies have throughout the world.
Empowering people to recognize and sanction misconduct will be main purpose of the GGB. Since people will be making the final decisions over questions that highly affect them, no crippling delays that prevent the challenges from being adequately addressed is expected. Individual contribution is essential for success of the processes and having in mind the decentralized approach, there is no danger for exercising powers of veto or arbitrary influence in the decision-making process.
3.3. Effectiveness
The capability of the GGB in handling the global challenges will be dependent of the community awareness. One of the main tasks of the GGB is to make the social responsibility mainstream and omnipresent. The GGB will drive the political will with bottom up approach and provide the communities with tools to address and solve problems. The ways in which the GGB will affect societies will be the same as the ones that are already in use, that be putting pressure and economic sanctions on governments and corporations. The only difference is that this pressure and economic sanctions will be applied by individuals and not the governments. Aware citizen will vote according to the truthful information provided by the GGB and will decide on their consuming habits according to the social responsibility of the corporation that provides the service or the product. In this way individuals can address the power and profit, the main reasons behind government and corporate misbehaving.
GGB will have two types of approach depending whether someone misconducts for gaining profits or power or whether somebody is taking actions due to lack of information and education. GGB will distinct these actions and will accordingly address it, either by helping and educating or by revealing and exposing.
Ex. 1 — behavior governed by gaining profit or power:
- If some government starts pushing legislation that is promoting monopoly and privileged access to resources and markets which will damage communities and environment, the GGB will give opinion on this situation and distribute this opinion to the citizens of this country. The representatives will lose voter’s support in the next elections or induce early elections. Politician’s careers will be put on line for decisions which will harm the communities. As time passes the GGB will have its supporters in governments, voted on the ratings which the GGB will provide. This will make the GGB more influential and efficient.
- If some corporation pollutes the air above the permitted or is developing AI software which is controversial and dangerous, the GGB will give recommendation and explanation on the matter. People and communities can then boycott this corporation through which its profit will be tackled and reduced, forcing the corporation to change the means of production.
Ex. 2 — behavior governed by ignorance or survival:
- If individuals are not aware of their impact on the environment and are polluting the air the GGB will provide education and program to overcome this problem. GGB will offer substitutes, compensation and knowledge to moderate this state and raise awareness.
3.4. Resources and Financing
GGB will use personal contribution from philanthropists, crowdfunding and cryptocurrency as sources of funding. The initiation processes will be sponsored by the members of the initiative board and the representative body. After the initiation period the GGB will start issuing its own cryptocurrency. Its distribution will be tightly connected with the contribution and the rating of the people involved in the process. Enterprises that will accept this cryptocurrency will be rated as contributors to the GGB as well. This way the economic cycle of supply and demand will be rounded up. By issuing its money and build its value system GGB will ensure its long-term financial independence.
Throughout the year GGB will reevaluate its financial situation and will organize fund raisings and crowd funding sessions. Information about GGB’s finances situation will be publically available and the raised money will be allocated and used according to the GGB need and the plan presented to the stakeholders. As the influence of the GGB raises and GGB supporters become more influential in their countries state taxes can be introduced in support of the GGB.
GGB will use its network to provide resources and attract professionals to work for the organization. The incentive for the professionals will be utilizing knowledge, professional challenge, remuneration in money and cryptocurrency, reputation in societies etc.
3.5. Trust and Insight
Open data and transparency is the essence of the GGB. Starting from the blockchain technology which provides immutability and consistency, through the information providing and sharing concepts and ending with the reputation system, the whole structure of the GGB revolves around concepts of trust.
The GGB will be fueled by the people at every stage of its work. Furthermore, the GGB concept is nonexistent if people and communities don’t participate, monitor and control the processes. The whole flow of information from providing, validating, storing, processing and distributing will be open and transparent. Even the inside processes will be rated and open for the public to evaluate it. Data openness, unbiased information and information flow is the essence of the GGB.
Due to the high level of transparency, the people will be able to verify every information presented by the GGB and monitor the process of decision-making. Since the process is metric and science based, the decision-making highly transparent and having in mind the horizontal and nonhierarchical structure of the GGB which by definition is hard to manipulate, people will rely on the GGB decisions and recommendations.
3.6. Flexibility
Flexibility will come from two directions, first, by reducing the need of it by addressing the reasons behind the threats and not the threats themselves and second, by implementing processes which are flexible in its core, like holacracy and the common based peer production. Both holacracy and the common based peer production reside on constant participation of the community and employees, so the processes and methodologies get shaped ad hock and as needed. Constant interaction with the public will bring lots of ideas and creativity to the process. Flexibility will be gained by strongly using metrics and science in addressing the issues and by involving the community which will add local culture in creating the solutions and directions.
Technology and other contemporary concepts will also add up to the flexibility of the organizations. The possibility of telecommuting, the concept of using your own device or using co-working spaces or affiliate with other organization are also ways which will bringing more flexibility to the organization.
3.7. Protection against the Abuse of Power
There will be multilayer defense against abuse of power, either that be influence of power centers over the GGB, or be GGB’s abuse of power. The GGB will aim to be financially independent, transparent, unbiased and supported by an open data and open process concept which can be easily challenged and decision made can be easily checked. The reputation system that will be in function will detect malfunctions and misbehaviors in early stages. This system will be used to purify and monitor internal processes. Detecting and not addressing biased behavior within the organization may lead to risk of losing GGB’s rating, support and relevance since this kind of behavior stands against all the core values of the GGB. The check and balance system that is incorporated in the structure of the GGB together with the transparency and outside exposure will be sufficient control mechanisms for avoiding abuse of power from and upon the GGB.
The recommendations coming from the GGB will always favor the interests of humanity. It will seek social and global responsibility from all formal and informal organizations, including individuals. The control mechanism will be applied throughout the structure and complemented with AI presence.
3.8. Accountability
Accountability of the GGB and its contributors will be addressed through the reputation system and the transparency of the process provided by the GGB.
GGB will build its organization around the reputation system. Its intention is to make not only the GGB and its employees accountable for their action, but also to introduce personal responsibility and accountability as a primary standard of the new age. The reputation system will not only expose misbehaving individual in the GGB organization, but will also be used as a weapon for fighting corruption and outside influence.
The internal structure of the GGB will not be hierarchical and the decisions will be product of cooperative work of different participants. This structure is by definition harder to manipulate and influence and since the decision-making process will be highly transparent, it will be very easy to determine the unprofessional actions of separate individuals and hold them accountable for that. Transparency here will also play a key role, since the person that is responsible for misconduct will be well known to the public and apart from the criminal or civil liability he/she may hold, his/her social credit will be on stake as well.
