The Syntelist

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Why Metasophism?

The ideologies that exist today -- socialism, liberalism, nationalism -- have failed to foster creative and cohesive societies capable of surviving. That's why Metasophism was created: to render a society immune to decline. But how? Let's start with history.

According to British historian Arnold Toynbee, societies start to decline when the elites begin to worship outdated ideas, laws, and institutions that prevent the society from adapting to new problems. We see this today when expansive interpretations of human rights are used to facilitate low-skilled immigration, despite that being a long-run economic burden to host countries. We also see it in the failure of countries in Europe to transcend the model of the nation-state: the result is weakness and indecision in the face of world-historical shifts.

Metasophism addresses this by having a single objective: eternal gain of knowledge, in the hope that someday we may discover the meaning of life, or prove what we believe it to be. Everything else is negotiable, depending on whether it helps the mission or not. This single objective allows us to approach other issues more flexibly, mitigating the problem identified by Toynbee.

We must develop the strength -- financial, organisational, and cultural -- to pursue it regardless, without begging the powerful to listen. To bootstrap a new society oriented towards knowledge, the first Metasophist project will be the establishment of truth-seeking firms in the form of a co-operative. There will be two pillars to this: external testing of products and services by members, and internal reforms to prevent the spread of sycophancy and servility.

Future members could be given a shareholding in the co-operative, in return for contributions such as the testing of products or spreading word of Metasophism.

The best thing? We don't need mass support. We need about four percent.