Ranting on Agenda

Everyone has an agenda; there are no exceptions.

agenda

1. A list of things to be discussed in a meeting.
2. A programme of things to be done or considered.

In the usual way of a contingency table along the axes of ``self: known''/``self: unknown'' against ``others: known''/``others: unknown'', there are four possible outcomes for each pairing.

I am...	Self: Known	Self: Unknown
Others: Known	Predictable	Manipulable
Others: Unknown	Manipulative	Unpredictable

The outcomes are to be interpreted as an evaluation of the state of the epynomous ``I'' with respect to the pairwise comparisons of the [objective] knowledge of the pair's agenda.

I bring this up due to more recent thoughts on hypocrisy and its newest buzz phrase of virtue signalling, and their interactions with regular capitalism.

At an individual level, perhaps there is less hypocrisy, since any and all actions that are taken by an individual can be taken up to scrutiny by that person's peers, and can easily be identified to be accountable and therefore be taken to task or praised according to whatever need arises. This is little to no difference between the ``I'' persona that I project to others, and the ``I'' that is ``the true me'' within. In short, I cannot be split away from my outward facing persona---any such attempts will immediately be called attention to with the single disdainful application of the word of ``hypocrisy''.

However, the moment we move from a singular/individual level to an organisational-type entity that is made up of more than one person, things get very fuzzy thanks to the collective [legal] fiction that is made up to support the existence of such an entity. A corporate entity is simultaneously ``one'' (able to for example, possess capital of all sorts) and ``many'' (different semi-autonomous arms operating under the same name that is believed [legally] to be of the same entity). Many people can be part of a corporate entity---each of them are simultaneously ``the corporate entity'' and ``not the corporate entity''. This means that the play of how each individual's agenda interacts with each other become quite important in determining the actual agenda of the corporate entity itself.

Remember, the corporate entity is not standalone---it has no will of its own. Its existence is owed to the sentient beings that make it up, which in this time and age, includes the regular humans, the processes as stipulated in its corporate rules, regulations that define the framework of the [legal] fiction, and any other decisions made by anything that is [legally] recognised as a part of the corporate entity itself (yes, I'm talking about artificial intelligence and machine-learnt models).

Thus, it is wholly possible for any single corporate entity to simultaneously support both a cause and an anti-cause, simply because one active arm of the corporate entity supports the cause [for some reason] and another active arm of the corporate entity supports the anti-cause [for another reason]. The hardliners will straight up call this ``hypocrisy'' without batting an eyelid, not realising that there is nothing within the [legal] fiction that the corporate entity has to be consistent with its actions.

Actually, there isn't a hard rule that stops any individual from being consistent with its actions, just many soft social rules that show displeasure to the individual for acting hypocritical. The soft social rules work for individual people because of the impossibility of separating the persona from the person, but they fail dramatically for corporate entities due to its naturally amorphous nature.

That said, while the corporate entity's final agenda is affected by the pair-wise plays of its member's agenda, there is usually one final overriding agenda item that comes from the fact that the corporate entity's purpose is based on one obvious capitalistic principle: amass more capital, or in simple terms, ``it must be good for business''. When the actions taken by a corporate entity are analysed from this aspect, all the hypocrisy and layers of redirection/deceit become easy.

Sadly, this is part of the reason why the tragedy of the commons exist. Economists have it partly correct in that the problem is correctly identified, but the part that is not quite right is the assumption that regular people are rational. No, I posit that the individual person is not rational by default, but corporate entities are the actual rational ones in practice. Moreover, the tragedy of the commons is much magnified by corporate entities simply because they are capable of amassing capitals at scale that break a single person's understanding, and are capable of bending the wills of governments. That last feature isn't new, see also the Dutch East India Company.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves and go back to the source concept of ``agenda''. The key observation here is that corporate entities are [legal] fiction---their existence relies on a sufficiently large number of people believing that they exist. They are an example of the emergence behaviour that I talked about in the past. So it is actually technically possible to steer the corporate entities's agenda so that some form of ``greater good'' may be arrived at.

However, just because it is technically possible doesn't mean that it is plausible. I mean, assuming a quantum mechanical interpretation of the world, the wave-particle duality's idea of the matter wave predicts that it is technically possible for a thing as massive as a human to be diffracted like a wave, but the crunching of numbers reduces it to something that is practically implausible.

Similarly, just because it is technically possible to adjust corporate entities' agenda to be less destructive for the individuals doesn't mean that it is plausible to be carried out, especially if the rate of change is bounded in any way. There are reasons why in many cases some form of revolutionary ``violence'' (physical or otherwise) needs to take place to force a change. And in most cases, such revolutions will first cause the most harm to those whose power is kept/enhanced by the framework before the revolution, before harming collaterally as the deconstructed framework is rebuilt [organically] by the victors.

It's a bloody mess, most of the time. So there's a tendency to avoid that through adjusting the agenda [of the corporate entity] over time.

The balance of power between the individual and the corporation has always been lop-sided, and those who control the corporation have learnt many ways to stay in control while simultaneously nerfing the ability of the individuals from organising enough to act as a countervailing force. No one is God, and so all the best plans by any individual must fail at some point---as to whose plans will fail and when is part of the mysteries that are unknowable by us.

But in the mean time, take into account the contingency table of how agenda relate to each other, and always seek to be more informed through high quality information to better understand motives. Then decide.

God may know all, but we still need to play out the events through our free will. And ignorance of the rules of the game is not a valid excuse.

Till the next update.