Miscellaneous Topics

Various essays and blog type pages were moved here to consolidate so the 'All Site Pages' link only contains relevant/current material that is useful or will be used for implementation.

Website is under construction

This website javul.org is currently under construction. Many of the links or functionalities don't work as expected. You're welcome to check the current list of issues on github and report any new issues you find.

Javul Information Technology Group

Wikipedia, also a project that depends on volunteers, runs on the Mediawiki software which is open sourced and is continuously improved.

A critical part of the project, the Javul Information Technology Group will consist of volunteer and paid software developers who work to improve the project’s features and also look at requests for new software development which helps to fulfil the mission of project. Code repositories such as GitHub or BitBucket.org can be used to make it easy for people to join and contribute. This group will have its own Unit on the website.

This group will also create standards for software that others should follow. It will rate popular software according to how well the standards are followed.

The products of the group will be software, websites, phone apps and other IT components that will assist in managing effective leadership and governments, providing improved health care, fighting crime and so on.

Software based leadership and management system can be used for organizations of any size, whether its a small bakery, a national food chain, an airline or even a political system to replace old-fashioned ineffective governments. In fact fighting crime and creating better more responsible and accountable political systems is one of the core aims of this project.

There are many external initiatives that others are working on.

General Software Guidelines

• Software should be intuitive to use. If a lot of people are having a certain issue (for example Search engine results confirming this), that's a valid issue that needs a solution
• In its default state (e.g. at Installation), software should be easy to use for the most commonly used scenarios
• A work-around is not a solution. Priority is ease of use and user friendliness
• Software should be universal so it can be used in any country
• Utility/ease of use is more important than appearance and the 'cool' factor. It should be set as default and users should be allowed to change over to other options so they have the freedom to set the options according to their preferences.
• User preferences: A critical aspect of good software is that it should be able to cater to preferences of multiple groups of the population. The default functionality can change over time and it should always be what most people want. There should be options for other groups to change the functionality based on what they like. A software should not just provide one set of preferences and set it as default. This always results in multiple groups being dissatisfied. J’s software development group would create guidelines on how this can be done and will rate all software according to how well people’s preferences have been taken into account.
• Its ok and sometimes preferred to have multiple ways of accessing certain information e.g. the Android OS has permissions displayed via Specific App -> all the permissions it has and doesn't have, and which components (e.g Camera) have access from which apps

Here are additional guidelines that we can create. They're just examples to get us started:

• If a window has an 'X' button to close it, the ESC key should also work for the same functionality.
• Ability to Zoom in should be provided if useful and the shortcut for that will be the expected '+/-' keys
• Windows should be easy to resize, with 3 pixels available for the resize controls both inside and outside the borders of the window.
• Every software, web page, every app interface will have a 'Report a Problem' link that interfaces with Javul's 'Report a Problem' app
• In internet browsers, Exit popups should be blocked and any website that uses this feature should receiving a negative rating for engaging in this practice. The same is true for websites that automatically play videos with sound, or implement any kind of parallel animations (or websites need to respect the animations setting that are done in the browser settings)

Examples of Bad Software Techniques

• Making it look 'cool' and reducing usability: Why does the Calculator take so long to load? - this is absolutely unacceptable. We need alternatives for Windows because they do things like this and refuse to do anything about it. We want better software, not worse. It doesnt matter what the reasons are for this change. If the overall experience is now negative, then the change is not valid. At least the user should be given options to switch back to versions that are more usable.

Useful Links

• https://www.openelement.com * openElement is a free website building application with a WYSIWYG interface ("What You See Is What You Get"). The software automatically generates the necessary code for a website to display and function correctly, without the creative constraints imposed by other tools. The benefit to users is a simpler approach for beginners and a faster approach to repetitive tasks for professionals.
• OpenProject - Github (project management with some features)

Javul Manufacturing Group

This group would start by managing the contract manufacturing of some popular products such as smart phones. There are a lot of contract manufacturers located around the world such as Brazil, China, India etc. A few key characteristics would be full transparency, customer satisfaction and open-design. The cost of creating the product would be public knowledge. Requirements and feedback would be gathered from customers to design and improve the product. Everyone would be able to take part in the design process.

Culture Change

The video that inspired the creation of this page is: Young girls force-fed for marriage in Mauritania | Unreported World

Our leaders need to recognize situations in which culture needs to be changed and they need to figure out a way how to do this. This could be done via education, seminars, advertising, classes, rewards for compliance, periodic checks on progress and so on. How do we decide when a specific component of a culture needs to be changed? This is something that people can decide however we can have a set of basic rules such as:

• respect for human rights
• reduction of divisive elements in society
• Ignoring science (e.g. Cupping therapy)

Links

• Culture change (Wikipedia)

Failure Analysis

According to Wikipedia, "Failure analysis is the process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the cause of a failure, often with the goal of determining corrective actions or liability."

Safety in transportation of humans is considered to be so important that an organization was created with the sole purpose of investigating accidents. According to Wikipedia, "The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation." and "the NTSB's primary mission has been "to determine the probable cause of transportation accidents and incidents and to formulate safety recommendations to improve transportation safety (in the USA)".

There are so many different kinds of failures in government and leadership which have serious consequences for society. In today's world if a politician misuses funds or does anything else to erode public trust and harm the public good or do anything that goes against the philosophy of improving conditions for society, the news only reports the incident and even that is not done sometimes. There's no in-depth failure analysis, recommendations for preventing it from happening again, changing of laws and rules and requirements for leadership behavior.

Failures in government and leadership should be done with the same rigor and intensity that is observed in aircraft related accident investigation. This should also apply to corporate misconduct of any kind including bad management.

Failure analysis requires making data and evidence-based decisions where possible.

• Examples:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Flight_407 - incorrect input of aircraft weight led to a tail-strike and almost crashing the plane. A through investigation was done to find the cause and various ways for reducing future errors were suggested and rules were changed. This kind of investigation happens for every serious incident involving a large aircraft.

A new way of doing things

No idea on this website is unique or extraordinary. People have thought about wanting to live cooperatively since a long time and have been trying to solve various issues in society.

What is different now compared to 30 or 300 years ago? Internet exists and its popular and everyone is connected via their smartphones or computers. This type of global network did not exist 30 years ago. The internet already enables cooperation of different kind, Wikipedia being a prime example which is built by volunteers. Because of the internet we have the opportunity to utilize this network to further strengthen human cooperation.

People attempt to find single ‘unification’ theories or process models for things. By experience and intuition they feel a single theory can work for certain areas. For example scientists have pursued the 'grand unification theory'. Machine learning experts such as Andrew Ng have suggested that there can be one way of implementing machine learning so a machine doesn't have to be specifically programmed to do a certain task. Working on some of these unification theories is hard work as it involves a lot of knowledge and experience.

Javul aims to create and improve a single system that can work for all areas of society where progress can be contributed by anyone. Such a system is actually relatively simple to think of. The rest of the documentation talks about what elements this system will have, such as Units, Tasks and Objectives, feedback system and a way to maximize transparency and so on. While this simple system can be applied to almost any situation we have to also remember that most problems require their own unique solutions and this reddit link is a good example: What is the point of using screws with a Phillips head, flathead, allen, hex, etc. instead of just having one universal screw type?

How people use the problem-solving tools provided by Javul is up to them. They can be used to create and meet objectives, some examples of which are mentioned in this document. For example, one aim can be to reduce or eliminate the rule of corporations and governments as they exist in today’s world and to transfer the power they have over the masses to competent, knowledgeable and hard-working groups of people while maintaining full public accountability and transparency. This would be a new way to run the world. The great thing about the tools offered by Javul is that they can be used in any situation, by any group, individual or organization.

Abuse and Misuse of Power and how to prevent it

Abuse and misuse of power is the one of the causes of great misery in the world. Abuse of power happens when:

• those in power do not have any specific code of conduct by which they have to abide by, so they are free to do what they like. The code of conduct may be vague or may not exist
• Their actions are not very visible to the outside world, so there’s no supervision or audit by the ‘masses’.
• Once they gain power, there is no easy way to make them accountable for their actions and remove them from power if necessary.

In other words, if the actions of the ‘ruler’ are visible enough, they have a code of conduct to abide by and they can be easily removed from power, they will be forced to act in the interests of the people, act rationally and responsibly. In this way the abuse and misuse of power is minimized.

People themselves can be in control of the above 3 points. Those in power help others in power to maintain their rule and make sure the above 3 points continue to be an issue, causing people to suffer.

Most of the general public has a fear of breaking the law. This fear makes sure they don't violate any rules or get in any trouble. This is part of what makes people act responsibly. The same or more amount of fear must be felt by those who are in a position of power. They should be aware that acting irresponsibly can have negative consequences. People who are in power have a critical job and therefore accountability becomes even more important.

The diagram below makes things look easy and we know that's not the case. However we have to start somewhere.

Links

• Hierarchy is Detrimental for Human Cooperation (nature.com)
• Why Toxic People Get Ahead - New research shows toxic people score low on honesty-humility (i.e. high on Dark Triad), and were most likely to receive high scores for political skill, which leads to higher performance ratings by their supervisors, and advances into leadership position.
• Personal story: Warning to those ignoring realtor reviews when apartment hunting: DON'T. (self.VirginiaTech)
  This story talks about an apartment owner/Realtor company which treats its tenants poorly. The thread is full of comments from other people who have confirmed that there's a problem with the realtor company. This story presents an issue on the small scale but this problem is present on every level. When people get in a position of power and no one can remove them from that position, they start caring less about people.

Reporting Systems for Bad Behavior

Reporting of a person's action is possible on websites and online platforms like apps. An example of an action is a user Comments. Reporting can also be possible in real life. Any reporting system will not be perfect however we want to minimize negative consequences. This is the goal of a reporting system:

• The main goal of a reporting system is to reduce the occurrence of the bad action and to reduce the occurrence of unnecessary censorship or abuse of the reporting system

Whatever the situation, there will be a “tree” for decision making. These can be some suggestions:

• Real identities are not available unless it’s a serious issue. This is to reduce public shaming and also some people making the judgements on the reported items may not want their identities to be known for different reasons.
• Reduce repeat offenders by having some kind of escalation for people who have a higher rate of violations. For actions we want to them to know precisely why their action was invalid and we want to show them the guidelines so they know what is expected behavior and what is not desireable.
• Reduce unnecessary censorship. If the community thinks the report is invalid, the person who reported the action, is also told by the system that their report was rejected. No action is necessary unless a person makes too many invalid reports. In this case, the community creates a warning which is sent to the user. The identities are again not known unless this becomes a serious issue.
• There can possibly be some rewards for people who are involved in making judgements on reports since most of the time ‘moderation’ is a thankless job. Providing rewards will make sure enough community reviewers are available.
• When something is reported, it goes to the community for a public review. The identity of the person whose action was reported is not available to the public or anyone. This is because public shaming has a negative effect on that user.
• Ratings for moderators: A moderator can perform an action anonymously but that action can be rated others for fairness. The fairness rating will become part of the moderator's profile and compared to a minimum required rating and the average.
• If the community thinks the report was valid, this is made known to the user who made the action. The computer system makes sure that user sees a warning. After multiple warnings, the system automatically takes some action such as not allowing that user to do that action for certain time. Even at this stage, the identity of the user who did that action, is not made known to the public. If the action is of a serious nature (such as a crime of some kind)
• Avoid negative characteristics of reported systems as given below.

The above system can be refined as needed. Currently the situation is not that good. These are characteristics that we want to avoid and they are seen in today’s reporting systems:

• In the worst case there are no reporting systems at all.
• Or if there are, the chances of misuse are high e.g. when something is reported, it is immediately judged as guilty (e.g. the comment is removed or a video is taken down) even when a judgement has not been made.
• The content is still available until an internal moderator reviews and takes action. They can abuse or misuse the system by unnecessary censorship or removal of content. The bad moderator can continue doing things like this without any consequences. This is the most common dysfunction in today’s reporting system
• There are no consequences for anyone who repeatedly makes invalid reports
• For repeat offenders, there is no escalation of any type so their rate of the reported action stays high instead of being reduced.

The rules of these reporting systems can be used for anything such as online comments, online submissions of photos or videos, or situations involving real life. Software may be needed to implement a system like this and it should be open-source so anyone can utilize it.

API for Reporting Systems

Javul can help create an API for reporting systems that other websites can use. All the above functionality can be implemented on the same system.

The inputs of the system can be: Username, action type, Action content, Comments from the Reporter etc. The output of the system can be a boolean (true or false) called 'Report validated' that results in further action such as a ban or suspension or 'held for review' and so on.

We need to see what is possible. We can experiment with an external website and see what the problem is, what the solutions are and how an API for a reporting system can be created.

Links

• Handful of “highly toxic” Wikipedia editors cause 9% of abuse on the site - "Depressingly, the study also found that very few personal attacks are moderated. Only 17.9% of personal attacks lead to a warning or ban." - this shows the importance of an effective and fair moderation system.

Introducing a new model for society

Currently the model that the world runs on is based on personal requirements. People work for a living to buy things that have some utility for them. The primary motive of companies today is to make a profit. This project can try to introduce other models in addition to the one we already have.

Both kinds of models would exist. The new model would encourage people work for things that are beneficial for society. Creating a successful model where the masses are strongly motivated to work for improvement of society is one of the goals of this project. Currently only a small portion of society spends significant amounts of their time for the improvement of society. These people are found in activist organisations and volunteer groups and they are usually doing the work for free although there are non-profit organizations as well which do the same kind of work. All of them form a small percentage of society. Our goal is to significantly increase this percentage.

It's important to notice that Javul does not support penalization of undesired or bad behavior but rather rewarding those who engage in good behavior. This means no one should be forced in do anything they don’t want to do.

Smart and hard working have existing throughout human history. One difference between then and now is the internet. It can enable people in remote locations in a way that was not possible before.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming, Light-bulb moments and Creativity - these are similar words that have the same concept. How do we increase brainstorming, generation, preservation and evolution of new ideas? Contributions of this nature need full recognition and compensation if possible. This is critical. Without creativity, we cannot have effective problem-solving. This topic requires a special focus.

Choosing Project Names

Project names should be relatable, easy to pronounce and understandable. There are exceptions. When a person tells someone else about a project, its easier for the new person to accept the concept when its name is easy to say and its relatable. We could use two-syllable words, for example Google, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Youtube, Baidu, Yahoo. Sometimes there are exceptions such as Instagram (3 syl), Wikipedia (5 syl), Amazon (3 syl), AliExpress (4 syl), StackOverFlow (4). Alexa's top 500 websites is a good place to look at project names: https://www.alexa.com/topsites

Language of a word is another aspect. One could say that two syllable words can be 'successful' no matter what the language is.

Although this doesnt guarantee success. Of course the project has to be based on a valid idea and it has to be executed well in order for it to be successful.

Javul is a Hungarian word which is not relatable for English speakers, however it has two syllables and its a short word. The meaning of the word ('to improve') completely matches up with the project's goals so that is a big plus point. We'll see later if we have to change the name.

Names of new initiatives and software (apps, websites) should be chosen carefully. If its something that we want people to propagate, we can try to think of something that has all those characteristics and ideally two syllables.

New to Javul.org: Start here

If you are new here, here are some suggested links and things to keep in mind:

• Everything is under construction including the main website and this documentation wiki
• Main Page - introduction to the project
• Website Functionality - key concepts of the software
• Javul.org Platforms - table showing different website platforms for Javul.org (main website, document wiki, sub-reddit, Github etc)
• All Pages on this documentation Wiki
• External Initiatives - other initiatives that Javul can help with
• Get Involved
• Notes:
  • Everything is under construction including this documentation wiki and the main website
  • See something in the documentation that you disagree with? Javul.org is only a tool to help people work together. Most of the documentation is not the official stance of Javul.org. The documentation just contains initial ideas that people can improve on and work on.
  • Any significant amount of time should not be spent on discussing or debating what is in the documentation. If you dont agree with what you see, you are welcome to add in your own ideas. Don't remove other people's ideas. Let everything be presented to everyone so they can choose what ideas and initiatives to support
  • The core purpose of Javul.org is collaboratively working to solve the problems we face.

Get Involved

We and the world we live in faces serious problems. This is a call for help from people all over the world.

One of the goals here is to reward people who contribute good ideas and perform high-quality work. You can be rewarded if you help out in any way for any of our Initial Projects.

Here are the things that need to be done at Javul.org:

• Strategy and Management:
  • Pioneering / Taking Initiative: Be a pioneer and a leader, do what needs to be done, take initiative. Try to think about what needs to be done.
  • Managing software development (we need to verify and improve the task management system and wiki, forum software for units)
  • New ideas for the system's architecture (general functionality)
  • Thinking about what needs to happen in order to make more people want to get involved on Javul.org
  • How can we make sure that people are rewarded for the best ideas and for doing high-quality work?

• Community
  • Recruiting others and attracting people with useful skills. If you know of intelligent, competent and energetic individuals with a positive attitude who might be interested in this project, spread the word and give them a link to this page: https://javul.org/wiki/New_to_Javul.org:_Start_here
  • Networking with other organizations
  • Managing the sub-reddit at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Javul/ (appearance, structure, wiki pages etc)

• Documentation (this wiki website at: https://javul.org/mw/)
  • Copy-editing
  • Organization of information and making it more understandable
  • Creating new content

• Software:
  • Software and Website development (coding)
  • Bug Reporting
  • Bug Testing
  • New ideas on how to improve the software
  • Documentation

• Usage of the website (this will be done by the end user):
  • Creating, editing and completing Tasks and Objectives related to the Unit they're interested in.
• Financial assistance. See The Role of Money

You can start by reading all the documentation about the project, including the Main Page and guidelines. Take your time to become familiar with the project.

There are many roles that people can assume on Javul.org.

Accountability related work

This role involves Task approval, bid selection and work evaluation.

These 3 work roles involve making sure the task is appropriate and viable, the best person is selected for the task and the work completed is of satisfactory quality. This ensures some accountability and oversight to protect any funds available in the Unit that fund the tasks within the unit. All activity can be observed by the public which can raise concerns if there are any issues with either the quality of work being done or with the accountability.

• Task Approval: Evaluation/approval of task information. Making sure it’s clear what needs to be done, making sure it’s possible to complete, related to the objective and unit under which its listed and has realistic deadlines and funds allocations
• Bid Selection: Evaluating bids and choosing the task worker.
• Work Evaluation:
  • Evaluating the completed work. Making sure the requirements of the task have been met (what needed to be done, deadlines). Check quality of work.
  • Leaving feedback
  • Approval or Amend: Was the work ok or does additional work have to be done?
  • Release funds

Accountability related work is very important and it requires analysis of issues and making decisions. It is a difficult cognitive task. People have to be rewarded for doing it. These roles also suit certain personalities. Some people may not be interested in doing the task but are very interested in making sure there’s accountability and they like exercising their judgement and being responsible for such work.

The effective management of this kind of work is essential to make sure people are motivated to be involved in work like this. This work has to be tracked and feedback has to be stored so anyone can see how good someone is in maintaining accountability. There also has to be full transparency for the public so they can view any task analysis, bid selected and work evaluation. This is necessary to prevent or reduce honest/intentional mistakes, corruption and bad judgements by those who are involved in accountability related work.

The maintenance of justice, fairness and transparency in a good system is crucial. The crowd has a very strong sense of justice and reacts swiftly and strongly to any perceived injustice.

Creating Tasks

Its difficult for one person to be able to come up with a list of tasks that need to be done for a Unit. It can happen but its rare to find people like that. In most cases, someone will notice something that should be done and they might talk about it on the forum first and then create a task for it. When more people do it, we get an on-going list of tasks that need to be done.

When creating tasks its good to list most of the steps needed to do the task. This helps the person who might be interested in completing the task. They're usually not someone who would be the creator of the task as these are two different skills (having the idea and motivation to create the task, and having the skills to complete it)

Software Development and Testing

If you are interested in software development, pick any project that you like and become involved. Currently there are no existing projects other than the website's main software (see Github). You can talk about any new projects that you would like to start.

Improving Documentation

If you are a good proof reader or you can improve the documentation in any way, feel free to do so.

Improvement of Management

Creating Better Workplaces

How Your Toxic Boss Is Hurting Your Mental Health ("Bad bosses can take a serious psychological toll, research shows.")

Google has a method they practice to address bad management. See this video: Managers in Google who fail to improve their feedback scores for multiple cycles are removed from their duties

Also see 8 traits Google has identified as belonging to toxic bosses

Bad managers stress out their employees, are ineffective in their jobs and possibly damage the company financially when they cause employees to have reduced productivity or leave the company.

Currently there’s basically nothing that an employee can do about a bad manager other than change jobs. People who are most affected by bad managers are their direct reports. We need a performance review system that empowers these employees so bad managers are forced into retraining, replacement, salary reduction or demotion when it is necessary and appropriate to do so. Either way if multiple people have suffered due to a bad manager, this is not a situation that should be allowed to continue. We cannot allow bad managers to continue making other people and the organization suffer. Of course like anything, a system like this needs checks and balances but it can be designed so it cannot be misused.

There needs to be a system where employees are empowered enough so they can get rid of bad managers or put them on performance improvement plans. The design of the system has to be such that there can be no abuse of the system. Traits of bad managers should be studied and employees and managers should be aware of those traits. Employees should easily be able to report these traits. There should be a system that tracks these bad traits and enforces action by training managers who show bad traits and if the training doesn't work, the managers should be removed from responsibilities since they are negatively affecting the work place.

In both governments and companies there's a common dysfunction that happens. People who are affected the most by a specific situation are often not the ones who have any control over it. The people who do have control over the situation and have the power to resolve issues, often do not have the same experience as those who are affected by it the most. Only when the person in power has the same experience as others, they will be motivated to resolve the issue. An example is a company. The people who suffer the most due to a bad manager are his direct reports. Bad managers are often clever enough to change their behavior depending on who they're interacting with. They will be nicer to their own bosses than compared to how they treat their direct reports. Upper management therefore thinks there's no issue and is not motivated to take any action. In governments for example, laws are often fixed only when a politician is affected by them.

To fix this dysfunction, we have to identify those who are most affected by a certain situation and we have to give them the power to resolve the issue. This helps reach an effective solution quickly compared to never seeing that solution or having it implemented partially. Of course checks and balances have to be present.

In real organizations, for all employees, we want to track certain qualities:

• Irrational behavior
• Harassment and abuse to varying degrees etc
• Leadership Initiatives
• Failing to fulfill expected duties.
• Doing a job in a sub-optimal way

For managers:

• Micro-managing employee's time and not giving them room to breath
• Frequent Last-minute change of plans (including meeting cancellations). Also not providing enough notice for events or meetings
• Lack of transparency in decision making
• Inconsistent intensity of work load especially with no transparency of what is happening (employees get blindsided)
• Different treatment of employees (some get away with very little work load while others are over-worked and on top of that, scrutinized)
• Disorganized in general
• Not keeping track of what employees are doing or being out of touch with what's happening (keep commonly-shared weekly meeting notes from everyone, that might help)
• Not contributing (too many meetings, over-head or administrative stuff that means they're not really contributing in a meaningful way)
• Managers need to spend perhaps 50% of their time in development work so they respect their employees and understand the work and contribute

Reporting Observed Issues

The following are just some possibilities for how to address the problem of bad management.

We can reward people for reporting employee/manager issues. We can make the reporting incentive based and complaints can be anonymous. Complaints can go to a team of employees who evaluate the reported issue. Complaints can also go from lower levels to higher levels (skipping intermediate levels). Complaints can be rated for how significant the problem is e.g. from 1 to 10.

Reward managers according to the number of complaints they receive and the average significance rating.

Above a certain number of complaints or the significance rating, we can get upper management involved and action should be taken.

The goal is is to correct bad behavior. Employees who fail to correct as necessary, should be replaced. We cannot keep tolerating bad behavior when there are better people who can take their place.

Track employee performance for the last 2 years or last 7 years like credit history.

The bottom-line is that we need to treat the issue of bad management and bad employees and we need to train employees and managers for good behavior.

Good managers are very important for a company. Having said that, another issue is employees who don't have the skills to contribute to the workplace in a meaningful way. They recognize that playing a superficial managerial role can help them receive a paycheck without having to learn skills. These people need to be detected and stopped from joining the workplace unless they demonstrate the necessary skills. Managers need to demonstrate excellence, experience and skills at lower levels before they can be allowed to manage others who work in that area.

Proposed System

As with everything else on this site, nothing here is written in stone and a system can always be improved. There are some suggested steps that can be performed:

• First a full 'tree' of categorized generic behaviors needs to be created so all individual complaints can fall under the appropriate type of dysfunctional behavior we're trying to target. An example is that the Communication category can have several specific bad behaviors. Some behaviors could fall under more than one category.
• Employees would receive training on how to identify bad behaviors and how it would effect their productivity and morale and how to use the system and how the system works. Managers would view this same training as well.
• It will always be clear to the manager that if they perform any kind of intimidation or retaliatory action in any way against an employee they think made the complaint, their position as a manager will immediately be under consideration and such retaliatory action will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Even mentioning to an employee that they received a complaint can be seen as intimidation. The only acceptable reaction that a manager can have is to improve their behavior.
• Complaints from employees would go to a special team to be evaluated individually. The team would directly interact with the employee to validate the complaint and review the evidence. We're not looking for one incident but rather a group of complaints and if its from multiple employees that's even better.
• A judgement would be made and if the complaint is valid, the manager would be sent a notice that a complaint was filed with no mention of the employee who made it. The complaint would not have any specifics but would contain a generic description of the situation.
• There can be an escalation of complaints. For example the first validated complaint results in a warning with generic information on why the complaint was filed. Subsequent complaints can require the manager to attend training that specifically address those bad behaviors. After that we could have personal counseling or a fine associated with them and finally removal from their management position. Fines can be limited to less than 20% (for example) of their take-home salary for the month.
• At no time will the manager know who created the complaint, or who validated it. They can however ask for an appeal if they think an incorrect judgement was made.
• It may be nice to also have positive reinforcement for example a rewards-based system for the best managers whose employees could be invited to talk in events on what they like about their manager. It is suggested that some managers are so dysfunctional that only positive reinforcement may not be effective in making them change their behaviors (which is why Google removes bad managers from their duties if they fail to improve)

Improving Leadership

Poor political leadership is a huge problem and is the cause of many other problems. It needs to be attacked from multiple sides:

• Political Performance Metrics apps
• Creating leadership structures from the ground up, for example giving opportunities to people to lead and have those leadership qualities tracked in a transparent and accountable way

Existing apps and software are trying to attack this problem from various sides. We need to see what angles are being attacked, or what aspects of the problem are being attacked. Seeing that analysis will provide us information about what aspects of this problem exist. And perhaps we can then see what additional ways can be used to be attack a specific aspect of the problem, or if there are new aspects that we can attack.

Scope of the project

The scope of this project is global and is applicable to every aspect of society in any part of the world. People from different countries can get together and solve problems that exist in any part of the world. Different countries and regions are at different stages of improvement in different areas and they can share their expertise in an area that they have advanced in more in relation to other countries and regions.

So there are no geographic limits. People in Europe might know how to solve certain problems in Australia or America. People in UK and America could get together and take an active role in helping solve problems in Africa, South America, the Middle East or other places. People in Asia may have knowledge and experience they can share to solve problems in the UK.

International collaboration is needed now more than ever. More and more regions are gaining access to powerful and advanced weapons and technology progresses quickly. International hostilities are often created by the very same leadership system which also causes the public to suffer in their own countries. These people are not qualified to lead internationally, let alone nationally so these kinds of leaderships need to improved or replaced.

Inspiration

• Reddit link: TIL that Microsoft Solitaire was developed by a summer intern named Wes Cherry. He received no royalties for his work despite it being among the most used Windows applications of all time. - an example of how a ‘volunteer’ can make something excellent that people like:
• TIL after a millionaire gave everyone in a Florida neighborhood free college scholarships and free daycare, crime rate was cut in half and high school graduation rate increased from 25% to 100% - Money can help society a lot. Here a rich person helps out
• Peruvian Scientist Self-funds a Nanotechnology “miracle” - this is proof that one person can achieve a lot of things. We have to believe and keep working on our objectives even if we know we’re alone.
• As New York looks to ban encrypted smartphones, here's what you can do - "A new website lets New Yorkers vote on if they want legislation to become law."
• https://www.reddit.com/user/NASAJPL/submitted/ - This is level or type of connection we want with the organizations that work for us. Highly trained people who are experts in their fields and have no ulterior motives. They’re working for the benefit of the entire mankind.
• Being open to new ideas: Most people were afraid of Youtube’s new community moderation system but here’s a rare opinion that explains how it will work out. This doesnt mean we're defending Youtube’s system but its more about the fact that the public may not be accepting of a new system even though it will be improved over time. All we need is something that works better than what we have right now. Its understood that people are doubtful of Youtube's ability to be fair to its users because of the way they've treated them in the past.
• Sticking With The Wrong Choice - People remain committed to a choice, even when a clear alternate choice is better, because of time, effort, or money already invested - a cognitive phenomenon known as the “sunk cost fallacy”. New research discover that this occurs in mice and rats as well as humans.

Basic Income

Automation and high-efficiency production along with the use of AI is becoming more and more prevalent. Here's a quote from Stephen Hawkings posted on Reddit:

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."

The future of society should not be at the mercy of politicians and powerful corporations. Basic Income is therefore an important and relevant issue for us. It becomes even more important to have organizations and governments which work for the people in a competent and accountable way.

Links

• Basic income (Wikipedia)
• The End of Meaningless Jobs Will Unleash the World’s Creativity (reddit comments)

Quotes

• "The Greatest Threat to Our Planet Is the Belief That Someone Else Will Save It" - Robert Swan, OBE (the first person to walk both poles of the Earth)
• Talking Tech & Saving the World with Bill Gates! (At MKBHD's Youtube Channel; 2/12/2019):

Bill Gates: " ... When I look at politics, I have to admit there's some trends in terms of how what trust people have, how they're polarized. I do worry about that. That's not you know, (?) I don't bring unlike the biology where I get to study and see it, I'm on the same footing as everybody and seeing these political trends, but yes there are things that I do worry about. But overall, the human condition, our ability to feed, prevent disease, how people live an enjoyable life, we are making great progress on those things so as long as we stay committed to them, that's, it makes me love the work and remain optimistic."

MKBHD: "Alright, well I hope obviously your work goes as far towards the successes as possible. And I guess my last question would be. Knowing that you're doing all this work but someone in my position, I'm not a philanthropist, I don't necessarily have the means, how does someone like me or someone watching this help in the best way that they can?"

Bill Gates: "Well I wish more people could actually get to these countries, you know, join the peace corps, spend time, even just spending a few weeks there and see how great their needs are and see the progress. A lot of volunteer work in the United States builds that sense of 'ok, we care about other humans even beyond our own family group'; even people have very different experiences."

"So at a young age, a little bit of giving money away, you know to form that habit and picking which things you really want to give to, including lots of things here in the US and getting involved in volunteer time, those are the people who I think will help kind of bring the world together and you know, void just this divisiveness. That is my greatest concern."

• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead

Governments attempting to censor the free internet

• Russia to disconnect from the internet as part of a planned test
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country

Personal Safety

How safe is it for anyone trying to do right thing? Depending on the situation it can be risky, e.g. Chris Packham reveals he has been sent death threats over campaign to save birds. Consider that this happened in a developing country with better human rights and judicial systems than other places so you can imagine the threats that could be triggered in countries where crime and justice is a bigger problem.

This makes it even more critical for people to act as one and for us to have multiple redundancies and safety measures. We cannot be driven by fear and decide not to take part in this project. If anything that makes it even more urgent for us to drive forward and to work harder. There is safety in numbers.

Strategy and Web Design Internship (old)

Javul.org is seeking designers with a desire to tackle the dysfunction in global politics and empower citizens as change-makers. See this page for more details on the project: Performance-Based System for Electing Better Leaders. The ideal candidate has experience with design research, UX, and visual design of digital systems.

Your internship experience will include:

• 8-10hrs/week of remote work
• Weekly voice conferencing through Discord
• Research, brainstorming, feature prioritization, mapping, prototyping and designing specs for a beta website.

--> (?) This is a paid position at the rate of $250/month.

If interested, please send a letter of interest to javul.org AT_ (gmail) (minimum 150 words) and talk about your previous experience in Research and Design and your thoughts on the project.

Volunteering and Initiative - A few personal experiences

Lets study the topic of volunteering and taking initiative. This writeup may seem appear like I’m overthinking but its actually a good example of volunteering and we can look at it in detail.

I moved to a new city and was travelling the same route every day for work. I noticed that at one location along the route, a traffic alert sign originally located on the sidewalk had fallen over about a foot (30 cm) into the road and obstructing traffic. It was clear that the sign had been in that state for a while. It wasn’t a big issue but it was enough to make me watch out for it while I was driving. Every day I would look at the sign and be slightly irritated, wondering why no one living in the house in front of that sign bothered to go over and take it off the road and put it back on the sidewalk so it wouldn't obstruct traffic. This is a small example but its a good example to study in regards to volunteering and taking initiative.

Finally one day when I was driving on the route I thought of that sign and decided to see if there was a street I could park my car at, walk over to the sign and take it off the road. Indeed there was a street very close to it. I parked my car, walked over and took the sign off the road. There were also some sandbags that were placed to weigh it down so it wouldn’t fall over. The sandbags had also fallen onto the road. Watching the traffic closely, I took everything off the road and placed the sandbags back on the sign. Mission accomplished, I walked over to my car and went on my way. The total time taken to fix the problem was probably just 2 or 3 minutes (that included me parking the car, walking over, fixing the sign, walking back, driving to get back on my route). As I’m typing this, it was possible the wind knocked it over. If I was going to be on that road regularly and saw the sign knocked over again, I would have called the city to ask them to fix it, perhaps take the it away or use a more permanent arrangement that wouldn't be knocked over.

While I was fixing that sign on the road, only a few people saw me do it and some of them probably thought how nice I was to do that. Some would have wondered what I was doing. A large number of people would pass by the now-fixed sign and never know that someone like me had fixed it.

Once I went to a clothing store and noticed there were 3 items lying on the floor that some customers might have dropped when they were evaluating items to buy. I picked up the items and tried to put them back in their matching places as best as I could. I noticed store personnel were present and walking around.

I’ve personally come across many situations like this where I saw that people were not doing what I thought they should do if they came across a situation like that, with the result that a problem existing but no one cared enough to volunteer and do something about it.

Let’s study what goes on in the mind in this situation according to the different types of people who come across this situation.

1. A person sees the sign, isnt bothered much about it and drives around it. Maybe they dont think about the fact that it could be bothering other people or the fact that its not supposed to be there. As long as they’re not bothered by it they are perfectly fine ignoring the problem. I suspect this happens most often.
2. Some people might see it and might be bothered by it to a noticeable degree but not enough to make them think about stopping and fixing the problem because it would be too much trouble that its not worth the time or effort.
3. Judging by the number of cars that went by that sign every day and the sign had been there before I saw it and only I stopped by to fix it, I can conclude that a very small number of people are bothered enough and take the time and effort to fix the sign. Lets examine my emotions in more detail: (1) slight annoyance by the sign that would increase every day when approaching it. That anxiety/annoyance would happen earlier and I would anticipate the sign so I could prepare to drive around it. One day I was bothered early enough so think about checking if there was a closeby street that I could maybe park my car at and fix it. I didnt have any traffic behind me so I was able to focus on searching for that street. Indeed the street was there and I was relieved to find that out. That’s the moment I decided I would park my car and fix it. As I parked my car, I felt some additional relief as I discovered that I was going to do what I thought should have been done. Solving a problem generates some anxiety and mental burden as we try to find a way to solve it in the best way. This was a small problem but all problems generate some level of anxiety. I went to the sign, analyzed the situation, watched out for traffic and carefully stood the sign back up and arranged the sandbags around it to weigh it down. Satisfied that it was in its original intended place I walked back to my car. Job well done, I felt further relief knowing I had done a good deed that saved me and others some minor/major trouble depending on how you want to look at it. Count the number of cars that went by that location every time and add all the anxiety caused by that sign, including the slightly possibility of an accident if someone was driving too fast and steered too far into the next lane while trying to avoid the sign and the car in the next lane wasnt expecting what would happen so they weren't able to intervene on time.

If we were to draw the anxiety graphs of these 3 people they would all look different. For most people the anxiety level would be small and constant and increase only slightly when passing by the sign. For the person who fixed the sign, its possible that their anxiety level was already higher than normal, and they were sensitive to situations like this and the anxiety increased higher to the point where it concerned them enough that they decided to do something about it. The anxieties can have multiple causes:

1. Personal inconvenience because I have watch out for the sign.
2. Fear of an accident if I’m driving around it and someone wasn't driving carefully enough and they steered into my lane and caused an accident. It wouldn't have happened if the sign hadn't been there because I would have had room to avoid the sign. There's also some anxiety about a future accident happening involving other cars and not my own and knowing I could have prevented it if I or someone had fixed it.
3. Irritation knowing that no one else has fixed the sign and being upset at people/society in general.
4. Knowing that its going to take some effort to fix the sign. That could be laziness/procrastination
5. I dont know the kind of neighborhood where I’ll be parking my car. There can be all kinds of dangers; perhaps there’s a guard dog loose in the area somewhere or a drug dealer and what not.

So there are multiple kinds of anxiety’s that are working together. Notice that everyone has these anxieties but the levels may be high/low. Someone’s anxiety about the bad neighborhood might be stronger than anxiety #3 (irritation knowing that no one has fixed the sign so far) and hence it never happens that they decide to stop and fix it.

There’s another aspect. Some people have walked on the sidewalk by that sign and could have easily fixed the problem without it taking much time or effort compared to mine and yet they didnt. Also no doubt that some employees from the city government drove by the sign, saw it but didnt care about it even though they knew that this situation was related to their job and they were the ones supposed to fix and maintain it since they had placed the sign there in the first place.

In regards to positive emotions, I will be satisfied with what I did when I pass by that fixed sign every day so that's one reward for my actions. I will also have reduced stress while driving on that route because I dont have to drive around anymore and I know I made the road safer for others and myself and I also have general contentment after doing something I had planned for.

I can easily say that the same kind of anxiety and concern I felt about that fallen-over sign is what also resulted in me thinking about the state of the world we live in and creating a website like Javul.org. I was lucky enough where I had the technical/management experience and means to create a website which I understand that only a small segment of society has.

Observations and Final Thoughts

There are some interesting observations and questions relating to volunteering and taking initiative.

What kind of person does it take to fix that broken sign? What kind of people are least likely to fix a problem like this and what percentage of society do they form? How many people are close to fixing it? Is it possible to not be bothered by the sign and still volunteer to fix it? How often does it happen that someone is bothered by the sign as much as I was, but still not care about stopping to fix it?

What role does parenting, culture and personality play a role in this situation?

Most importantly: If the probability of someone in society noticing a problem and volunteering to fix it is 5%, what can we do to raise that probability to 95%?

We have to think about questions like this and find answers.

Various Links

• Better Parenting: Keep calm and carry on: Mothers with high emotional, cognitive control help kids behave (reddit comments)