Talk:Technocracy movement/Archive 6

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Lets discuss this information before reverting edits

It is hoped that for the good of this article (just objective information) be used here. Hibernian and Technocrate why not stop doing wholesale reverts, and look at some of the information I have posted as information sources above. skip sievert (talk) 17:37, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Technocrate you have edited this page again without discussing the article or giving an explanation. Please refrain from doing that. Fresco is not related material to the subject here. It is not connected to the Technocracy movement and they publicly say so. There is no relationship between his Venus Project and the Technocracy movement. Please do not put that link up again. skip sievert (talk) 22:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

English/Spanish link to Technate design infor

This site is not in competition with the TechInc site or any other. It is basic design info. as presented in the Technocracy Study Course in its last two chapters. Part of the movement ? Yes. The Technocracy Study Course forms the basis of the concepts concerning Technocracy http://technatedesign-tnat.blogspot.com/ The North American Technate TNAT

Energy Survey of North America and the world synopsis not located in the digital file here

It is also noted here that the link that contains the Technocracy Study Course here and on other pages is not the correct original edit of the book. It does not contain the Energy Survey that is located in all the paper copies of that book. The energy survey is located after the two design chapters at the end of the Study Course. It is hoped that a new digital copy of the entire book will be made soon and this file which also has the chapters and pages mixed up will reflect the actual material. With the addition of the lengthy energy survey the overall impression of the book is broadened a great deal. To any with the paper copy of the book - please scan the entire book and make it available. Thanks. skip sievert (talk) 15:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

J. Fresco

The Venus project while perhaps interesting is not connected to this article. J. Fresco the person that runs that project has said many times that he disavows Technocracy and its approach. He does not connect to the Technocracy Incorporated material in any way. It is not a good reference for this site. I would like to alert Technocrate (Isenhand) to this fact, and ask him to please stop connecting Fresco as a reference point to this article. Also to mention to Isenhand that the Technocracy movement is not 'obscure'. Please discontinue that edit. Google Technocracy, Technocracy Incorporated or Tnat the design of the north American Technate and multiple other sites that that inform the public as to Technocracy related subjects. skip sievert (talk) 02:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

reference

Isenhand/Technocrate. A reference that goes to a broken link. ^ Emanuelsson, Erik (3 November 2006). Det teknokratiska idealsamhället. Noden. Retrieved on 19 June 2007. I have noticed for some time that it leads to an unavailable page.

This is what the page leads to... "Not Found The requested URL /node/200 was not found on this server."

Is this link from a newspaper article or online entry somewhere ? As a reference it is no longer working. skip sievert (talk) 01:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


  1. ^ Emanuelsson, Erik (3 November 2006). Det teknokratiska idealsamhället. Noden. Retrieved on 19 June 2007. again this link is not working and should be removed from this article or replaced. skip sievert (talk) 01:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Page protected

The page has been protected because of edit warring. This is not an endorsement of either version. All users involved have made mistakes. Please seek mediation through one of the following channels:

I will give my opinion here that I think the NET is given too much weight, but I probably won't get involved beyond that.-Wafulz (talk) 17:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

now done at: [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Isenhand (talk • contribs) 07:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Wafulz would it be possible to protect another related article Technocracy Incorporated? skip sievert (talk) 18:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I've protected that one as well.-Wafulz (talk) 19:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms of the movement

That section in the article page was out of proportion to the actual article. It is now shortened but still contains plenty of info. Also the NET section is pared down slightly and the correct creation date has been added. Also a link reference in the bottom of the page is not working and should be taken out. It is a dead link... has been a dead link.. and shows no sign of returning. This is that link that could be removed now. Emanuelsson, Erik (3 November 2006). Det teknokratiska idealsamhället. Noden. Retrieved on 19 June 2007. skip sievert (talk) 17:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The reference should not be removed if it exists in print. But yeah, the criticism section was huge and unsourced.-Wafulz (talk) 16:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Restored pared down Criticism section and other wiki links and external links skip sievert (talk) 17:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

When was NET created? Here is the documented time and place according to their website

NET is a new organization from 2006. That is when they were formulated according to their own information.

(This from the NET web forum) Happy birthday, N.E.T.! Today, N.E.T. will be one year old!On the 6th of May 2006, the recognition of the organisation as a legal entity was made a fact. We are an infant organisation, but we are slowly learning to walk and the future looks bright, and it will be even brighter and brighter. end quote --- That information from May 6th 2007 -- en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=127&limit=2&limitstart=2 Network of European Technocrats - News Excerpt from the NET website

Again since this article is here it should present accurate info. Because the article is mainly edited by the director of the organization itself and their websites surrogates... it is wondered about conflicts of interests..?. vanity writing aspects..? and notability..? especially since this organization is being written about solely by the members of NET themselves.. which are resistant to any modification not approved by they themselves... also they are not written about by any serious media that can be documented. All of their information is self published and none of it is peer reviewed outside their circle. It also could be construed that wikipedia is being used to pitch a commercial project. A good portion of the NET website is devoted to the discussion of money making to promote themselves. Since this article (Technocratic movement) was designed as a vehicle to bring web traffic to NET... and the whole concept of a Technocratic movement does not really exist aside from the concepts that NET is promoting.. this article should probably be deleted. Just the Technocracy Incorporated article is appropriate. There is no Technocracy movement. The term Technocracy in and of itself does not mean any thing. Technocracy Incorporated promotes the concept of the Technate design for North America. There is no connection to the Venus project or NET in regard to that. These web based groups should probably just have their own sites and not try to gain credibility by making connections to other groups that are not really true. skip sievert (talk) 14:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not particularly familiar with editing policies, but a half hour looking at the articles on notability and related articles has led me to believe (by all means correct me if I'm wrong) that difficulty in finding sources is just that alone and not independent grounds for deletion. And in light of technocracy's notability:
a) among technoutopian philosophies as 1) an actual historical presence (that would place the 'movement' in past, but it was/is a movement undeniably) and 2) one of those (vying with specific terms/people/literature centered on technological singularities, extropy, and distantly, statist-socialism) political philosophies with actual political //praxis//
b) inherent as a political philosophy with its own corpus of literature
I think there are still strong grounds for preserving the article. Although I am not 'verifiable source' in the sense of article deletion criteria, I can attest to awareness of Technocracy (by no means widespread, but there nonetheless) in discussions of political philosophy I have had with several people (only two of whom know each other, although I am doubtful they have ever talked politics with one another). It occupies a unique corner of the political philosophy spectrum that nothing else, to my knowledge, fills. In any case, I am unsure of how an as-yet unresolved conflict between criteria like notability and sources is resolved. User422 (talk) 01:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


The organisation was formed in 2005 from EcoTech which was formed in 2004. NET was then registered in 2006 (when as it says it became a legal entity). An organisation does not have to be registered to be an organisation. So net was formed in 2005 on the Technocracy.ca forums and registered in 2006. Isenhand (talk) 06:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

No it was not. It was formed in 2006 as I have documented above. Why give a link to a website that is not an official site for the ideas of the Technate design .. as a link ? That site is basically a site not connected to the official site in any way. That goes to say that the participants there most likely did not get accurate information to begin with. skip sievert (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What's going on in this article?

What's the latest dispute in this article?-Wafulz (talk) 00:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

1. The creation of NET in terms of the year. When they became an organization. I have documented that time above from their own website. en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=127&limit=2&limitstart=2

Network of European Technocrats - News ---- So I think that is accurate. I do believe that another editor may be trying to stretch out the time of their conception. This is a minor point but for the sake of objectivity in general it should reflect the actual time that NET became an organization.

2. Another editor insists on putting a reference to TechCa. a Canadian blog/forum site that is related to some Technocracy ideas and concepts yet is not connected to the actual http://www.technocracy.org/ The Official Web Site For Technocracy Inc. It is also not connected to the other official site of the organization that is listed on the official site. Since this site was listed earlier as a site that probably could not be listed as a reference unto itself... it has been removed. While it may have some information on it that is valuable there is nothing there that can not be gotten at from the official site. Since this site was earlier said not to be a good reference point in and of itself it has been removed.

3. An editor has added the Venus Project leader J. Fresco to the reference points in the article. This person (Fresco) disavows any connection with Technocracy Technate ideas and does not consider himself a part of a Technate movement. He may be a former member of the Technocracy group... but as said he himself and his Venus project group advertise very loudly that they are not connected to the concepts of Technocracy Incorporated.

4. I am of the opinion that this article itself Technocracy movement is not really appropriate for inclusion on wikipedia and should be deleted. It was created when the original article was split for the purpose.. I believe.. of promoting Network of European Technocrats article. Since that is a commercial website that devotes a great deal of time to being a commercial site.. I also think it should be deleted (NET). It is mostly a forum/blog that is interested in commercial ventures. In a very large sense there is no Technocracy movement. This concept is a construct thought up by NET to promote their version of some ideas taken out of context and applied to their construct of a proto-technate run by something they call holons. That has no reflection in the actual ideas of Technocracy Incorporated. Since most other people interested in the actual Technocracy Technate ideas would not look upon NET as a reference point... but would look at Technocracy Incorporated as the origin and actual Technocracy Movement. skip sievert (talk) 02:08, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Fresco and Technocracy movement.. start point for NET ?

As to Fresco in my opinion he is not connected to a Technocracy movement. That concept seems to be a construct to reinforce the idea that there is a Technocracy movement by the NET group. I would note also that J. Fresco would not consider himself to be a member of this movement or associated now with the Technocracy movement. He has made it a point to disavow any connection to that group or movement. Also the NET group can say they formed at any particular time and it is hard to say if that is accurate or not. They did become a registered group for tax purposes in 2006. That seems like a start point for them in the civil legal sense. skip sievert (talk) 16:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Recent changes

First of all, I would invite User:JzG to please come here and explain his rational for deleting large sections of the article. In my opinion what is being deleted as "Spam" is simply not, it's quite vital sourcing information for the page, essential even.

As for the European section, saying that it is not relevant here could not be more wrong, just because its article has been railroaded through a deletion process, does not in any way make it less relevant here. Deleting an article about something and erasing all references to that subject from Wikipedia are two quite different things. I would like to remind JzG that deciding whether or not a subject is appropriate for its own article and deciding whether or not it is appropriate for inclusion as part of another article are very different processes.

Deleting it is simply unacceptable, no matter what else my be said about it, NET is an officially registered organization which seeks to promote Technocracy (the subject of this article), it is thus quite relevant here and it is quite appropriate that there is a section devoted to it. If you think there are good reasons to delete it then come here and debate the matter, don't just erase it and then block any access to it without any discussion.

P.S. I was unable to post this, or any other communications, here all day because JzG apparently "blacklisted" the NET website (a rather extreme and uncalled-for measure in my opinion), which blocked all access to the page until User:Wafulz fixed it. --Hibernian (talk) 21:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with user JzG's recent approach and decisions in general. I think he has shown appropriate judgment in regard to this article and other Technocracy Technate articles being discussed recently.. some of which were suggested by him as articles to delete for various reasons. There was in my opinion a type of cabal consensus formerly made up of NET users or promoters maintaining control in a possessive ownership fashion in regard to Technocracy Technate material.
Notability issues were hashed out in the NET articles for deletion debate. It was demonstrated that NET is self sourced. A social movement is probably not the same as a forum on the internet with 3 administrators and several active bloggers or commentators. I would agree with the perception that one editor called spam was taking place in regard to linking NET in a myriad of contexts.
Also it seemed to be impossible to compromise with the prime players that were in my opinion promoting NET.. a commercial website with multiple threads devoted to commercial interests. I would add that any group of people can officially register almost any thing. Also the term railroaded through a process.. seems unfair. My opinion. skip sievert (talk) 00:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I wasn't asking for your opinion Skip, because we all know it already. I was asking JzG to explain his actions here, if he doesn't do so within the next day or so I will assume he's no longer interested in debating it and I'll just go ahead and perform the rewrites to the article. --Hibernian (talk) 14:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
It's vanispamcruftisement, simple as that. Nop reliable independent sources support the significance of this content. The onus is always on the editor seeking to include disputed content, to justify its inclusion. You haven't. 'Nuff said, really. Guy (Help!) 23:38, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you read any of the long debates we had on this subject here? If you had, then you would have seen that not only did I and many others make plenty of good arguments on why it should be included, but that everyone (Except Skip) agreed and a consensus was reached. Now you’re suddenly saying that I have to re-justify it solely to you?

Well fine, to start with let's discuss the purpose of this article, it is to lay out the history and details of the various Technocratic movements that have existed over the years, or exist now. To that end, we have mention of several Technocracy groups (or Technocracy-like groups), such as those that existed in the 1920s and 30s, and of-course Technocracy Inc. which is the largest and most successful group. Continuing with this theme, we then go on to talk about a recently created and existing Technocracy group: NET. Now, you state that it is "spam" or "not relevant" or whatever, this is where I must disagree and assume that you don't really have much knowledge of the subject.

To have an article such as this, which encompasses the entire Technocracy movement, would be totally deficient if it did not mention the recent developments in that movement, namely the spread of Technocracy around the globe via the Internet, which has resulted in one group of Europeans setting up a Technocracy organization. Now on to the question of sources, if it is independent confirmation of NET's existence that you want, then the newspaper articles should provide that. It was agreed months ago by many editors (including an admin) that NET's own website is an acceptable source for information about the group and its ideas, etc. Oh, and "vanispamcruftisement"? heh, talk about Neologisms... --Hibernian (talk) 17:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Removed extraneous multiple links to http://www.technocracy.org/ ... just kept one. Also removed reference to NET... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VSCA skip sievert (talk) 22:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


Relinking extraneous links and material deemed vanispamcruftisement

I think it has been pretty well established that the NET material should not be reedited into this article Hibernian or other articles as well.. which you have been also doing. Also the multiple links to the same website (TechInc) were removed by JzG for a reason. Your edit is putting back material that has been by consensus deemed vanispamcruftisement Your explanation of your edit is not really an explanation .. just a directive that it is going to be the way you want it. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technocracy_movement&diff=205662793&oldid=205657424 Technocracy movement. skip sievert (talk) 04:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you'll find it was deemed not notable for it's own article, vanispamcruftisement was only mentioned once, and certainly wasn't a concensus. I see no reason it shouldn't get a sentence here; in fact, shouldn't it be a useful reference for the existance of the technocracy movement outside of the USA? MaKamitt 17:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


In a word...no. References to NET have been removed among other things for this reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_%28organizations_and_companies%29 Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)

References since the NET article was deleted have also been deleted for the same reason by an admin. editor.. please check the article history carefully.. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technocracy_movement&diff=205772871&oldid=205753833 JzG edit. Technocracy movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VSCA Wikipedia:Vanispamcruftisement is kind of a compilation of all the worse aspects of things that can be connected with an article on wiki. NET qualified for all of those aspects. Please read the reasons why the NET article was deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Network_of_European_Technocrats Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Network of European Technocrats -- suspected vanispamcruftisement was the stated reason for the article of deletion. Just for reference there is no Technocracy movement outside North America that I am aware of. What NET is doing is not related.. although it borrowed some terms which were redefined to a different purpose. They are a Price System group and that is not connected to the information here or in other Technocracy Technate articles. skip sievert (talk) 21:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The statement that "there is no Technocracy movement outside North America" is unprovable as to do so would require you to obtain evidence that every single person outside of the US does not follow the same ideology as that of the movement, on the other hand it only requires one single person anywhere on the planet outside of the US to follow that ideology for it to exist outside of US, and as the article currently exits there is no citation to validate the movements goals.

you can claim that there is no evidence (or no verifiable evidence) to show that there is a movement outside of the US and so should not be included, but invalidation of that position is relatively simple.

The statement about NET would appear to come close to if not crossing the line to violating points 1 and 2 of Wikipedia is not a soapbox official policy unless you can provide neutral 3rd party(verifiable) evidence to backup that claim.

Neutral point of view policy says that "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties"

and therefore the weight of the inclusion of the view point of any individual group mentioned in an article on the movement should be in proportion to that groups proportion of the total of people claiming to be part of the movement, subject to a verifiable source (Firebladed (talk) 23:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC))


Not sure I follow your logic.. but I was just giving an answer to MaKamitt. You certainly are entitled to your opinion... but this issue is moot and has been decided by an admin. editor. for all of the reasons listed above. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technocracy_movement&diff=205772871&oldid=205753833 JzG edit. Technocracy movement. skip sievert (talk) 00:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with what Users Firebladed and MaKamitt have said. Firstly there has been no consensus that NET should be purged from the page, nor that most of the links and sources should be deleted. That was the opinion of one editor, granted he's an admin, but that doesn't make him the automatic arbiter of everything. I would remind everyone that the actions of JzG and Skip have gone completely against the previous consensus that was worked out here by about 6 or 7 editors (including another admin) last year. Now we're told by JzG that we must gain a consensus if we want to put the article back like it was, I would again say that a consensus already existed about the page and it is up to him to give concrete reasons why that consensus should be overturned. He hasn't chosen to debate the matter so far, only responding with single sentences and links. That's fine, but frankly he shouldn't expect his opinion to be valued very highly if he doesn't even take the time to become informed about the subject or discuss it. --Hibernian (talk) 03:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears that a reverting account has been set up for this article page and related others

Technocracy related pages are being edited by a new single purpose account it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technocracy_movement&diff=next&oldid=205753833 Firebladed. Technocracy movement.

It appears that this is another NET website official member http:(Disable banned Link)//en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=107 Network of European Technocrats - fireblade --- This person restored the NET material in a recent previous edit that has now been reverted.

I put the disabled banned link into the previous address here to give the reference link to NET. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technocracy_movement&diff=next&oldid=205753833 Firebladed. Technocracy movement.

It would appear also that this editor is in a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest and attempting to edit this article as have previous NET members with no regard to recent events. skip sievert (talk) 15:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


the Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest would also apply to you

the edits I have made are in line with wikipeida style guidelines Wikipedia:Citing_sources and policy Wikipedia:Verifiability and I haven't edited anything that has anything to do with NET, just consolidated some citations and put in a request for a citation of definition of a term that is not in common public use or with a dictionary definition

If you would more accurately examine the history you would at no point see that I added those sections and the links you have posted are of removal of them. Such accusations i would say almost border on unacceptable behaviour under Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines under "Do not misrepresent other people"

(Firebladed (talk) 16:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC))


You kept in edits that have been decided by consensus and wiki policy to not be appropriate concerning NET. You are a paying member of NET. You have discussed on the NET site what you are doing here.

quote :

# fireblade : i have to say skip defiantly appears to be some what of a hypocritical person

  1. Enrique Lescure : Hahaha grin
  2. Dr. Andrew Wallace : nothing much, just skip up to his usele of "do as I say or I'll distroy you"
  3. fireblade : whats with all th wikipedia "edit wars" end quote.

Conflict of interest. I am not involved in TechInc or NET. As said this account of Firebladed would seem to be expressly created to maintain NET edits.

Some time ago an editing team led by NET members was assembled to control certain aspects of Technocracy related material to conform to the writings and published book ( a commercial enterprise) of the NET group. I would give the link to that discussion but the NET material can not be linked here for the time being. skip sievert (talk) 17:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


1. The actions of other people are their own responsibility and not mine
2. Not removing something is not maintenance, maintenance would be if I actively tried to keep it there, which I have not
3. My edits have nothing to do with NET, but are to do with verifiability and to help ensure the credibility of the presented information and removing unnecessary duplicate citations. (Firebladed (talk) 18:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC))

You may want to read the page history of this article to be familiar with the current version of it. 1. You are an active member and a paid in full member of NET. Your point 2. is wrong. If you were familiar with this article... you would not have included the NET material.. you did include it.. after it was deemed inappropriate. Since you are a member of NET you are writing about yourself. That is a conflict of interest. skip sievert (talk) 21:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


Since the edit history speaks for itself, and clearly shows that I did not add or alter any part of this article to do with NET, and this article is not about NET, I don`t really know what point you are trying to make, and as far as i am concerned i have nothing to answer for.

But if you feel that you have a legitimate point I would suggest that visit Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution and and follow the guidelines to request the opinion of a suitable third party or mediator (Firebladed (talk) 22:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC))

Skip quote: "I am not involved in TechInc or NET.". Wow! somebody actually got Skip to admit that he was kicked out of Technocracy Inc.! It took him about 2 years to admit it and come to the realisation, but better late than never I guess!
What you didn't mention of-course, is that you were very embittered by that dismissal and have since attacked the organization in any way you can (including on Wiki) and even tried to setup a rival group. You've recently also attempted to insert the name of your "group" into Wiki articles. Hmmm no, no conflicts of interests there, I think Skips just a honest contributor with no hidden agenda at all (And if you can't guess, yes I’m being Sarcastic). --Hibernian (talk) 03:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Technocracy Study Course.

Firebladed.. you were wondering about referencing the Technocracy Study Course into the articles connected.. as the reference source for the origin of the word Technate. I really have not heard of that being an issue that I was aware of before as it is the precedent document concerning the concepts of the Technocracy Technate design. Here is a link on Project Gutenberg internet archive to the complete copy of the Study Course. This is the only complete digital scan of the actual book that contains the entire Study Course including the pages connected to the energy survey and the eminent domain of the Technate area. A previous internet edition does not include that material and the many charts and graphs that are in this 1945 copy. This recently new to the internet material is located in the end part of the book ... after the design chapters in the appendix. http://ia341034.us.archive.org/3/items/TechnocracyStudyCourseUnabridged/TechnocracyStudyCourse-NewOpened.pdf Pdf.TechnocracyStudyCourse-NewOpened.pdf (application/pdf Object)

the point is not me wanting to see the document but that it should be cited or referenced in the article as source of verifiability (Firebladed (talk) 23:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC))

though on evaluating that link that document is dated 2008-02-23 and appears to have been edited (the inclusion of email addresses and 2008 dating)

so im not sure can be classified under Wikipedia policy as a reliable or verifiable citation and would require validation of someone more familiar with reliability of digital citations (Firebladed (talk) 23:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC))


Not a problem.. The previous edit of a similar but incomplete locked Pdf. copy.. minus the discussed important material was on this site and other wiki articles previously. It contained two web address's.. one an ordinary forum or blog type of site. The content is the important thing. Also it is hosted by a third party. Project Gutenberg Internet Archive... so it does not contain baggage of usual web address's connected to groups in a link.

I gave you the link for your own information. If you do not care to make use of it that is fine. It is the unabridged material. It is also in an open Pdf. unlike the former incomplete copy of that particular book.

Obviously a republished version of the original material may have a republishing date and further short or connective information in its introduction before the book content begins. The actual content is what counts. For instance when Google scans a book... it has that company name 'scanned by google' or something such.. stamped on every page from beginning to end. skip sievert (talk) 00:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

scanned by google is one thing but in a version where the authenticity uploaded version cannot be easily verified, it doesn`t make a reliable source

a reliable source on the other hand may be http://lccn.loc.gov/41016020 but i cannot easily verify this (Firebladed (talk) 01:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC))


You know I think you are being a bit picky with your points about this and perhaps can assume some good faith here... and not assume that some trick of information is being played. Yeah.. interesting. I think this is just a catalog in your link above.. saying they have it and what reading room to go to for reading it.

If it is in a digital format and down loadable from the site... ? I do not think so. That is also the original copy from 1934 which is interesting... but does not contain the information on the energy survey or the other information referenced from the late 1930's in the 1945 edition. I think the last edition is 1947 and it is the same edition as the 1945 edition.

I knew there was a copy there in the Library of Congress. Actually there are a lot of copies still around in public libraries across the United States and Canada. It is also available fairly easily from specialty rare books peddlers. I own a copy. The library in my city has two copies.

Really I put the information here because I thought you might be interested in the reference point more than any thing and the expanded information. The book is easily gotten on the internet by referencing the title. As said... the entire content has been previously unavailable on the internet.

The reason I gave some more information is ... as said the contention that the term Technate may have originated somewhere other than this discussed source... is a non issue to my knowledge. skip sievert (talk) 01:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The issue that is not specifically contention, but the fact that the term Technate is not in common use and not in any dictionaries, that I know of, and as such is not easily verifiable, to that end I believe that citation of a suitable source of the definition would improve upon the quality of this article and help pre-empt any potential claims of this article being original work, to this end as with any definition of a term or word the the older the referenced source is the better to prove the existence of the term over a longer period of time.

on a similar point there are other references to the Technocracy Study Course in the article yet there is no inclusion of the document in the references section of the article

e.g Technocracy study course, New York, N.Y: Technocracy, inc., c1934 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Unknown parameter |Last= ignored (|last= suggested) (help)
and
e.g Technocracy study course, The North American Technate TNAT, 2008 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |Last= ignored (|last= suggested) (help)
for the newer version but as I said I cannot attest to the unedited status, reliability, neutrality or it not being classified as an original work (Firebladed (talk) 09:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC))


NET has an abridged version on their site that is down loadable. It was partially scanned originally by a person in Canada.. David Ravlin. That and the other you mention.. to my knowledge are the only partial and full scanned copies extant presently. Most likely any one who actually wants this information can easily get it. If all the possible links and files to books and articles are put in the wiki article it would take on gigantic proportions. All the links were pared down a while ago for that reason according to one admin. editor. skip sievert (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, as to this issue, we come back to the same thing that was agreed upon months ago, nothing that has been edited or compiled by you Skip, is an acceptable source. If you post something on one of these websites, nobody knows whether you have tampered with it or edited it (or could do so in the future). Anything you produce is not official and not acceptable, only the officially sanctioned version should be used. And at the moment, that is the latest electronic version that was previously here. To my knowledge that is only available on the NET website, and once that is unblocked, it can be relinked again, problem solved. Alternatively if the Technocracy.org site were to offer it for download then we could link it from there, but as far as I know, they don't have it up there. Oh and as to links, there was and remains, no justification for deleting all those links and I will be fighting to get them back. --Hibernian (talk) 03:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hubbert peak

Peak oil or Hubberts peak are the names referred to in the discussion of Peak oil. In the sentence before those two identical concepts is the explanation that both are theory. The general reference in most books or articles cites peak oil. The sentence before in the article explains this as a theory. The link goes to the same place regardless. skip sievert (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hubbert Peak Theory?

In relation to the recent alteration to the section on Hubbert Peak Theory

is the theory know as "Hubbert Peak" or "Hubbert Peak Theory"?

the article Hubbert Peak Theory suggests the latter

Also is it better practice to link directly to the article with the same page or go through, (an arguably unnecessary) disambiguation page Hubbert Peak

I would assert that "One of many notable members of the movement was M. King Hubbert, a geophysicist who proposed the theory which has become known as the Hubbert Peak Theory or Peak oil."

is better both grammatically, technically and more accurate than the current version, (which has been reverted to twice)

if it holds true the theory is correctly named the "Hubbert Peak Theory" rather than the "Hubbert Peak"

(Firebladed (talk) 18:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC))

I got rid of the qualifier of the... now I think it makes more sense. Theory as said is in the previous sentence. More grammatical now. I do think the reference in the other article was misnamed. skip sievert (talk) 18:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

A few issues

Ok I've just made an edit to several parts of the article, now before Skip goes reverting it, I would ask him to first listen to my rational.

1). I've re-added the term "Early proto-technocratic organisations" which was deleted by Skip, because it was agreed a long time ago that this was the best way of describing these groups. They were technocratic in the sense of believing government should be run by scientist, but they didn't have ideas like Abundance and Technates, etc, hence "proto-technocratic". I removed "Precursors" since many of them were not direct precursors to tech inc, they just shared some of their ideas.


2). Skip changed the sentence: "The Technical Alliance, composed of mostly scientists and engineers, started an energy survey of the North American continent near the beginning of the 20th century." to "...of the North American continent in 1918.", I reverted this because I believe the sentence was trying to say that the Technical Alliance was using data and statistics about North America which came from all of the early 20th century. BTW do we even know what year the Energy Survey was started in? The TA certainly started in 1918-1919, but did they start the survey immediately? Do we have any source on this?

3). Skip inserted a sentence: "Veblen did not have a major influence on the eventual Technate design.", this may be true, but it is rather irrelevant, as the article doesn't imply that he did. It's therefore superfluous.

4). Calling Hubbert "One of the most notable members", is more accurate, because his is defiantly more notable than any other, apart from Scott.

5). As for the origins of the term Technate, I think we can safely say it came from Tech Inc., but we really shouldn't be getting into arguments about whether it was first used in the Study course or not. It is unprovable either way, unless some secondary source mentions it's origin. Besides its more correct to say it originated from the organisation, as the organisation created the book in any case.

6). On Urbanates, Skip it is not original research or opinion to say that Technocrats propose abandoning and mining old cities, this is well sourced, you just don't seem to be aware of that info. As for preservation, I don't understand why you keep deleting this, is it not obvious that some historical landmarks would be preserved from destruction and kept as museums? I mean do you think they would melt down the Statue of Liberty for spare Copper? Surely not.

Oh and BTW Continental Hydrology is given a red link so that someone will perhaps write that article, that's just a Wiki technique to draw attention to a subject that hasn't been written yet.

On another issue, not related to my edits, I notice in the Ideas and goals section, that it states that Technocracy "aims to establish a zero growth socio-economic system", is this correct? It was my understanding that the Technate economy (if you want to call it that) would either grow, shrink or stay static, in accordance with its population's needs and demands. i.e. if the Technate has 400 Million people one year, and it provides say, 1 TV (as an hypothetical example) to each citizen, it produces 400 million TVs a year. But if the Population grows to 500 million and demand for TVs grows to 2 a year, a few decades later, then the Technate will be producing 1 billion TVs, an increase (or growth in the "economy") of some 60%. If the population, or the demand falls, then the economy contracts, that doesn't sound like a "zero-growth economy" to me. --Hibernian (talk) 05:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


1. That is an invented word made up by NET. Andrew Wallace the NET director made up that term. It is original research and designed to drive traffic to a website because of a made up concept ... a commercial website of which you are a listed forum participant. You are in a conflict of interest therefore promoting them. Isenhand another editor made up the term and it is used throughout his book which is sold on NET for a hefty price. Proto-Technate is part of the NET groups changing of terms to their purpose. It is not appropriate in the context here. It is a recent made up word. Original self sourced from a non-notable group... NET.

2. When the T.A. started. In 1918 their research began at Columbia University. This is not contested. This began the research which is the Energy Survey.

3. Because another editor has emphasized Veblen to a degree that is not good in the article.. a disclaimer had to be added that Veblen did not influence the design. It is not so bad to add Veblen... he was a member of the Technical Alliance... but.. he died in 1928 I believe ...while the information was published in '34. Also Scott says in a pointed way that Veblen was not really ever connected except marginally. http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/History%20&%20Purpose-r.htm History and Purpose of Technocracy Isenhand/Andrew Wallace editor/Net director keeps putting weight in this context to Veblen because that conforms to a commercial book he wrote for NET. It is not accurate information though. Edits should reflect objective reality or the actual event, Not someones self published book concepts. You.. as a NET forum registered user.. have a vested interest apparently in maintaining this point of view about Veblen apparently because Isenhand comes from a sociological viewpoint rather than a scientific one which reflects Veblen. A basic error I think is committed looking at the information that way.

4. Not true. If you look at the list and look historically at this group there is a laundry list of many notable people. All documented in various fields. Hubbert is one of many notables. Steinmetz is probably more famous than Hubbert. He was a member. There is a long list of notables.

5. The theory explaining this comes from the Technocracy Study Course. That is the origin.

6. Original resource and speculation done by yourself in your writing. No reflection in the material. I have not deleted the part about recycling cities as you claim. You have extrapolated that to mean something in a projected original research way. Out door museums concept is your original research and this is not about your original research .. is it ?

Redlinks are not a device to entice people to write. Articles are written on merit. It just shows that either someone started to write one or it was deleted and no one botherd to correct out the issue.

Zero growth means in terms of G.D.P. or money. This system does not use an inflationary or money construct. The price system must rely on growth to survive. This system relies on a balance between consumption and production. Two different contrasted concepts. skip sievert (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Note the deleted link by wiki admin concerning the multiple links and the TTCD link deleted by JzG. That link should not be added here again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#technocracynet.eu MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia skip sievert (talk) 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Why did I even get my hopes up that it might be possible to have a reasonable conversation with you? Fine if you don't want to debate the issues, I won't ask your opinion in future, I'll just do it.
1). Skip, you are again getting very confused, I was talking about the term "proto-technocratic" groups, this has NOTHING whatsoever to do with "Proto-Technates" or anything by NET. I am talking about the groups mentioned from the 1920s, they are being described as proto-technocratic, for the reasons I've outlined, you've obviously just totally misunderstood what I was saying. You just go off talking about money, what are you Smoking?
2). That may be true, but do you have any evidence? Does it say that in the TSC, or any other document?
3). Sorry, I don't accept that argument, nowhere in the article does it say that Veblen was involved with the Technate design, etc, it is therefore totally unnecessary to have a sentence saying that he didn't, it's implied. I think this is just part of your bizarre hatred of him, which I cannot understand, you've essentially tried to have him deleted from the article entirely, having not succeeded in that you try to add a sentence emphasizing your opinion.
4). Skip, Charles Proteus Steinmetz wasn't in Technocracy Inc., he died in 1923, he was in the TA. The sentence was about notable members of Tech Inc. and Hubbert is defiantly the most notable of them.
5). That doesn't mean anything, a book cannot create a term, the author of the book creates it. And the Author was Tech Inc., thus Tech Inc. created the word, not a book, that makes no logical sense. You're just obsessed with putting in references to the TSC, give it up already.
6). There's only one problem with that Skip, it's not my original research, I didn't come up with the idea, the idea originated from Tech Inc.
You misunderstand my statement about Growth, I am not implying money or anything like that. I showed an example of where a Technate would increase its output of physical, measurable, resources, which would generally be called growth. I am merely saying we should think that a Technate would never grow, it obviously would, but not in the sense of a Price system, but in response to its population. I'm saying I don't think a Technate is a Zero-growth economy and we should reconsider using that term. --Hibernian (talk) 01:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I would say that the term Zero-growth economy may be accurate, if you are defining gross domestic product (GDP) in price system terms from a point of view internal to the technate as there is no price system but then the term is rather meaningless, but if viewed from outside could be entirely different, on the other hand if you use energy terms, and you can define GDP in energy value terms, it might not be and for valid reasons, mainly that as technology advances and spreads in general energy production and consumption increases, and therefore would be rather difficult to have a zero energy growth economy without having technological stagnation.
(sustainable total energy production, over a reasonable time period, is mainly only limited by the energy collectable from the sun, directly or indirectly + nuclear energy production)
that said the issue it is whether the goal of the Technocracy movement is to create a socity with Zero change in GDP not whether it is sensible, achievable or practical or not if that is the case then I think the term is accurate
but I believe the actual goal would be Zero Net resource consumption
(Firebladed (talk) 09:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC))
I agree with some of what you've said, and I guess this is where it get's complicated. If we define growth, retraction and stagnation in terms of Energy (as Technocracy does for all resources and work), then I think it becomes clear that it would be a dynamic and changeable system, you could have high demand for energy one year and low the next. Population growth would be the most obvious form of increase in overall energy output, if we were to assume that in a given time period every citizen had the same per capita energy consumption, then clearly if the population grows, either everyone must have less energy or the overall Energy capacity of the Technate must increase. Thus we end up with growth (or retraction if the population is falling). So Zero-growth doesn't seem like an applicable term. I can't say for sure though, I wish we had more opinions on this. --Hibernian (talk) 02:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Also noted : The Technocracy Study Course

in an unabridged edition is available to any and all on the internet. This is hosted by Internet Archive Project Gutenberg. http://ia341034.us.archive.org/3/items/TechnocracyStudyCourseUnabridged/TechnocracyStudyCourse-NewOpened.pdf Pdf.TechnocracyStudyCourse-NewOpened.pdf . That information has already been hashed out here. The file that was offered previously hosted by net was not the entire book... and indeed the file sponsored by net was missing the whole back section of the book. As an information link that file is worthless. It also was not put out by the original group. It is the product of a forum/blog site from Canada originally. skip sievert (talk) 01:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I will refer you to what I said yesterday on this, First of all, anything edited or completed by you is not usable, you were told that many months ago by everyone present. Secondly, what you've stated is not even true, the electronic edition that NET has was officially created by and sanctioned by Tech Inc., and is the only legit version on the net, I'm well aware of your current falling out this the leadership of Tech Inc. but that's your problem, and if you think your going to have your biases projected onto Wikipedia, you've got another thing coming. And that includes your opinions of the TTCD. --Hibernian (talk) 01:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
BTW, have you even checked that link, it doesn't appear to work. Only the first page loads, then the rest is blank, maybe it's just my PC, but I don't see any TSC there. --Hibernian (talk) 01:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Could you lay off the personal diatribes ? You are attacking me up and down on this page in every conceivable way. You have filled in areas above with personal attacks inserted after the fact of some issues or another. Could you go to the bottom of the page instead of following in other peoples statements with attacks on me? None of the things you are implying and overtly saying are true. This violates wiki personal attacks. This is not a blog for your opinion about another user.

The electronic version offered by net you mention was scanned originally by David Ravlin. It is not offered by TechInc and not sanctioned by TechInc presently and was not in the past. It is a file that was made of captured information by a Canadian Forum Blog site of which you are a participant. You are a registered user of TechCa. That is a fact.

The only legit version on the NET ? How could it be. It does not include the entire book. The whole back area of that copy is missing. I just checked Project Gutenberg and the unabridged version downloaded just fine. It is also an open copy ... not locked like the previous one you mentioned. skip sievert (talk) 02:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It stalls on the first page with me, too. "Problem with this document (14)" is the message I get if I wait long enough. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I just downloaded it again. Firebladed downloaded it previously. It worked. It opened from the above link on Internet Archive for me. Their site can be finicky though. Sometimes it takes a 2nd. attempt. It takes almost a minute. It is a big file. For another source of this document in a compressed zip file that opens at least for me in about 15 seconds.. go here to the lower right and click on Attachments : http://base.google.com/base/a/TheNorthAmericanTechnate/3350637/D11836088541498036302 TNAT Google Base: Technocracy Study Course skip sievert (talk) 00:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Quote from Skip "It is not offered by TechInc and not sanctioned by TechInc presently and was not in the past.", now sorry, but I happen to know for a fact that that statement is not true. I don't know all the details about the production of the Electronic edition, but I do know that the people who digitized it were members of Tech Inc. and were officially sanctioned to do so by Technocracy Incorporated's Continental Headquarters. It was previously available on their website before it was redone last year. I also know that all the changes that were made between the paper and electronic editions were also endorsed by CHQ. So whatever was removed (the appendix you say) was done for good reasons. I can accept that, apparently you can't, and like I said; I am not getting into a situation where your particular feuds, biases and obsessions are going to be allowed to spill over into Wikipedia.
That link you offer is just as bad as any, its got your "group's" name all over it, and again we don't know if you did or could edit it.
As for my statements about you, which ones were not true? That you were kicked out of Technocracy? I'd like to see you defend that one. I've never made a secret about what kind of editor I think you are Skip, and I have no plans to hold my tongue. --Hibernian (talk) 02:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


You know Hibernian the above is not really at issue. You are attempting to introduce some issues that do not pertain to the purpose of why we are here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPA

Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Could you read through that and report back later please ?

As to your theory about events and people could you cut it short. It has no bearing here. Mostly my edits have been adopted because they conform to the information connected with the articles. As far as the information here you mostly have it wrong. It was not available by TechInc. It was available on a Forum/Blog site of which you are a member. Another wiki editor captured the information from the person that originally scanned it... and put their data signature on it. That is another Forum blog sight of which you have blogged on. http://www.technocracy.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=Members_List&file=index&letter=I&sortby=uname&authid=b31ea5612f1f6ec34062fd85bc4cdb96 Hibernian user page. Technocracy.ca ... You have multiple posts there and they are advocates of the net group http://www.technocracy.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=viewlink&cid=1 NET promo.Technocracy.ca.... Every time I go to check something on that site... my computer gets loads of spam. That site is also not connected in any way to TechInc Washington. No connection what so ever... so the version of which you speak about has a history of which you are unfamiliar about. That is really not an issue here any way. It is ironic though that you reject the actual copy of the book in favor of an abridged copy that is poorly done... as said.. it is hard to read and also does not contain all the actual book. It is therefore completely useless. When you say..I don't know all the details that is kind of an understatement. Maybe you should pick up the phone and call TechInc and ask ? Their phone number is listed on their website. Ask David Ravlin. He is a public person. He is the one that scanned it. He will also tell you that the charts and graphs in the back of the book were too complicated to transpose at the time and were left out.

Why would censoring a book be done for a good reason? That really is nonsense to defend ideas such as that. An unabridged edition of a classic book is always better to get at the origin of said book. It was ... as said a technical issue at the time. This is currently not an issue any way. It appears that you will grab at any small thing to cast aspersions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#Talk:Tomislav_II_of_Croatia.2C_4th_Duke_of_Aosta Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts

The version you are touting here was created by TechCa in its present form. That is not a Technocracy Technate design site... it is unconnected. You are promoting that material here because you are representing a special interest as a member of that site. skip sievert (talk) 02:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Uh hm, right, well I'm really not even going to bother refuting the baloney that you continue to spew, but like I've said before, Your opinions of this or any other Tech Inc. publications don't matter to anybody but yourself, they don't matter to me and they certainly don't matter to Wikipedia. The fact still remains that that electronic version is the only one that has so far been made available by Tech Inc. on the internet, it's as simply as that, no other version is necessary or acceptable. That's the version we can use, End of Story. --Hibernian (talk) 23:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Again you are a special interest editor for a European movement that is unrelated to the subject here although you are making this point for that contention. This POV-pushing nonsense should go. You insert all sorts of nonsense on the basis that any two people who agree with you is consensus and any number who disagree means nothing. They are monomaniacs, disruptive, the article is an embarrassment, and they have showed long-standing determination to make sure it remains that way. You are incorrect about your above statements. You are uncivil and direct attacks instead of doing your homework in many of these areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OWN Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. You consider yourself a spokes person for wikipedia ?

You have your facts wrong about the Study Course. I suggest you reread my last comment above. skip sievert (talk) 03:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Hibernian isn't really making personal attacks or being uncivil. Also, considering how often you post on my talk page citing a different policy, I think you need to read over Wikipedia:Wikilawyering. The only policies that matter here are reliable sources and verifiability. If you have published a source yourself, then in all likelihood it can't be considered reliable.-Wafulz (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess the operative word is if. It is noted that the version discussed by Hibernian was published by TechCa. That site is owned and operated by Kolzene wiki editor. This is not an issue though on this page. This non issue was used by Hibernian to attack me. I am pointing out that I think Hibernian is making personal attacks. In my opinion he is. I will not be asking for your help in the future thanks. I have complained elsewhere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#Talk:Tomislav_II_of_Croatia.2C_4th_Duke_of_Aosta Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia skip sievert (talk) 17:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Outdoor museums?

This addition to the article comes from where? Though some buildings (or perhaps whole areas of the old cities) that are of historical or cultural importance, would likely be kept and preserved as a type of outdoor museums.

Could you give a reference or a citation ? Or is this original subjective writing ? Is it speculation? if so it is original research and does not belong in the article which should be based on objective fact in regard to the subject. skip sievert (talk) 03:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It comes from Technocracy Incorporated, the people who invented Urbanates, not from me. I'll admit that at the moment I can't offer a citation from any published work mentioning it, but I know that it has indeed been discussed by Technocrats. Fine, if you feel so strongly about it, then I can trim down the sentence and remove the specific reference to museums. --Hibernian (talk) 23:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
In any case, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, the only material an encyclopaedia can reference is material originally published elsewhere, and by reliable sources of note. It's not a place for the publication of original research, or personal points of view, no matter how well intended they are felt to be. I have found no reference to the material in question. skip sievert (talk) 03:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Technocracy Movement Content Dispute Resolution

The article is currently suffering from controversial editing and rolling reverts and edits which really need resolving and to form a consensus over the content and direction of this article which is also overspilling onto Technocracy disambiguation page and Energy Accounting article

Specific Issues

  • is Proto-technate a Neologism or just two words meaning first/before technate and if it is is its use justified under Avoid neologisms guidelines?
  • is Proto-technocratic a a Neologism or just two words meaning first/before technocratic and if it is is its use justified under Avoid neologisms guidelines?
  • What Individuals, Groups and Organisations fall within the Technocracy Movement and do they satisfy Notability requirement for them to be mentioned in the article

Firebladed (talk) 12:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


The above mentioned term proto-technate or proto-technocratic is a term invented in the last two years by a group in Sweden. That term is used as a talking point in a book that was self published by Andrew Wallace or Isenhand... a registered wikipedia editor. Ross Murphy or Hibernian as he is called by his wikipedia name is a member of the forum of net a group that promotes this term proto-technocracy technate. There fore in my opinion this neologism is planted in this article to direct people to the group net.... which was recently put on the spam black list. In other words this is a user with a special interest agenda.. in my opinion.. that wishes this term to google up to lead on to the group they are promoting which is a commercial website.

That group is not a social movement (net). It is a wikipedia editor with a self published book and several other people that have been in a cabal of control connected with several articles related to Technocracy Technate articles.

An attempt has been made by mono purpose editors to promote edits that accord with said book and ideas from the net group. A cabal is not a consensus. I would add that the above user Firebladed while playing an interesting role by suggesting this closer look.. is also a paying member of net who and is invested as a special interest agent because of that affiliation.

His account as far as can be seen.. was created solely to get involved in Technocracy Technate related issues. It is single purpose. So he is writing about himself and his group here. That would be fine if it were acknowledged. However slipping net related material (terminology) into all of these articles and making a case for net related material seems very much a special interest commercial attempt. http:DISABLE//en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=107 Network of European Technocrats - fireblade

As to whether an amorphous group under a term (Technocracy) that is not defined here or in the articles except through the original movement.. has credence... how can it? Technocracy movement was originally created only as a vehicle for net and is itself a neologism... a spam blacklisted link currently on wikipedia (the former net article created by net users). Its content was set up and controlled by a small knot of bloggers from TechCa in Canada and net a forum in Sweden. The information that went into the article originally was all tailored around a book published by Andrew Wallace... the net director.. Wiki editor Isenhand. This is writing about yourself. This is original research. Net itself has been shown to be non notable. This cabal of people with a new recruit (Fireblade) continue to come here and make edits that confirm an existence of a Technocracy movement. They think they are a part of said movement. This article should in my opinion be put up as an article for possible deletion. This term is an invention to promote one group and the basis of it not connected to any thing other than self published material.

Reality may be this. Net is a group of perhaps 4 to 6 active bloggers on a website.. an article which was devoted to them has been taken off and said to be this.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VSCA Wikipedia:Vanispamcruftisement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Network_of_European_Technocrats Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Network of European Technocrats


Ross Murphy is also a registered user of net and is also Hibernian and as a wiki editor has tried to conform edits as a special interest element for net even though their article has been taken down. http:DISABLE//en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=85&Itemid=65 Network of European Technocrats - Ross Murphy

He still insists that it is not spam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#technocracynet.eu Hibernian attemptMediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist.


http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=&page=Network_of_European_Technocrats Net Deletion log. He is not really reasonable in this judgment because perhaps he is involved with this group. This also violates wiki policy.

This term proto-technate/technocratic.. was coined by the net group. It is a made up word of recent origin by a group that is not really a social movement. They are a commercial website... half of which is devoted to money making schemes. There are literally a hundred spin offs of Technocratic related groups. Anarcho technocrats. Libertarian Technocrats. etc. etc. etc.. none of which are connected to the original movement at all. That includes net and its members and registered forum users that try and control related information on wikipedia.

Taking several terms and redefining them to a different purpose does not mean that they are connected. In my opinion the group that is mono editing for net should be topic blocked from editing these related articles as they are still promoting a commercial website.. and show no sign of doing any thing differently. Very very little compromise and cooperation has been shown and lots and lots of personal attacks on off topic and off site related issues have been used. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#Talk:Tomislav_II_of_Croatia.2C_4th_Duke_of_Aosta Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts. Trying to deal with mono editors with party line Pov is not very constructive to a good information article. skip sievert (talk) 16:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Skip please try to focus. If you've posted more than 100 words, you've posted too many.-Wafulz (talk) 22:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


Ok. I thought it was all focused. I tried to hit all the side issues. skip sievert (talk) 22:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


  • My opinion is that prefixing a word with Proto to mean First or before while may technically be a Neologism, though I don't believe it is, but im not a linguist. I believe it is still valid use as its meaning is already defined, so it is not original research and this would certainly apply to Proto-technocratic. Though to avoid arguments it may be a sensible compromise to replace with pre-technocratic for the same meaning as the prefix pre- is in very common usage and should have no issues of ambiguity
  • Proto-Technate is more ambiguous while if used to mean first technate the above would apply, its use in some contexts suggests a meaning other than that as in these contexts e.g "a proto technate" meaning "a first technate" or "a before technate" does not make sense I feel it should not be used in this context until it can be cited properly and therefore not be classified as original research
  • I don`t believe Technocracy Movement can be classified under culture in the contexts of the disambiguation page as in that context culture refers to references to disambiguated term in "popular" culture. From the definition of the word Movement being either a physical action or group of people/organisations with a set of goals, as it is not a physical action then the only remaining option is a group
  • To determine "what Individuals, Groups and Organisations fall within the "Technocracy Movement" requires a definition of what Goals the Technocracy Movement has which in turn requires defining what the Technocracy Movement is. In broadest terms my opinion of what a Technocracy Movement is "An informal groupings of individuals and/or organizations focused the goal of developing a method of governance by the skilled". From this point we either restrict it to those whose goal conform to or are derived from those of Technocracy Incorporated,as it currently is, or we expand to include all those who fit under the broad description and categorise the differences in the approaches and ideals of any Notable groups that fall within, which may be a better route to take and remove some of the overlap between the Technocracy movement and Technocracy Incorporated articles

(Firebladed (talk) 13:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC))


Pardon.. I did not understand much of any thing you are saying above. Weasel words are deliberately misleading or ambiguous language used to avoid making a straightforward statement while giving the appearance that such has been made. This type of language is used to deceive, distract, or manipulate an audience.
Tactics that are used include vague generalizations; the use of the passive voice; non-sequitur statements; extrapolating through the use of grammatical devices such as qualifiers and the subjunctive; using euphemisms (e.g., replacing "firing staff" with "headcount reduction").

There was no historical precedent to the Technate design. No other groups reflect the material currently either. There were no other groups that advocated for it other than Technocracy Incorporated until recently. The only other groups that are connected would be groups that are advocating the same program that was originally determined by the Technical Alliance. Technocracy Incorporated was and is only charged with making the information from the Technical Alliance available to the public.

A group in Europe that advocates for an association between themselves and this information is a non-starter. How in the world can a group of Europeans who have adopted themselves as the children of these ideas... change the ideas.. take terminology and make up new definitions for these ideas.(Energy Accounting) (Technate)... attach political meanings to these ideas.. (Communism) (Rule by an elite) (Anarcho whatever). and yet consider themselves in a group that is associated with Technocracy Incorporated or the Technical Alliance?

I find it rather intellectually dishonest and self serving/promoting that a group of forum/blog people are trying to worm their way into notability on the coat tails of a group that they are unrelated to except for stolen terms used to a different purpose.

Bottom line here is that a group of people in a cabal are conforming edits to a book published by the net group written by Andrew Wallace net director wiki editor Isenhand.

All this above by Fireblade.. a registered net member and forum contributor is an attempt to create or reinforce the concept of a Technocracy movement being populated by all sorts of people who want a so called governance of the skilled.

It is noted also that net has an assumption to power theory. Technocracy Incorporated was/is an educational group without an assumption to power theory. Net thinks that it is designing a program to take over Europe little by little ~!~ .. with them in charge ~!~

Technocracy movement is a made up concept to conform to a commercial book. It was made up by Andrew Wallace to qualify net with some connection to the original group. It is not connected though. Much as the beginning of this article comes from that book also... it is full of conjectural history that does not even remotely reflect some of the actual origins of the actual movement. Suggested reading for any interested in the actual history of this... http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/History%20&%20Purpose-r.htm History and Purpose of Technocracy --- These concepts are not related to the political construct that so called Technocracy movement groups are claiming. Please pardon the length... but it seems these issues are not subject easy editing for length. skip sievert (talk) 15:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


Ok hopefully we can get some progress with this. Firstly I'd just say that I've already expressed many of opinions on this in my previous recent posts. Anyway to address the issues raised:

  • Let's get this thing about "Proto-Technocratic" and "Proto-Technate" straight. First of all, there is currently no mention of the term Proto-Technate in the article, so I'm not even quite sure why we're discussing it at the moment, that was a term created by NET to mean some kind of intermediate stage between a Price-system and a Technate, their proposals about it were briefly mentioned in that article before it was deleted. I'm in favour of putting back a section about NET into this article for reasons I've expounded previously. Now if a section about the movement in Europe is re-written it might contain mention of the idea of a Proto-Technate, though I suppose that depends on what length the section is and now much detail NET's proposals get. Now as for the term "Proto-Technocratic", it must be understood that this has nothing to do with a Proto-Technate, these may sound similar but the meaning is completely different. Proto-Technocratic is being used in the article simply as a catch all term for the many groups mentioned in the history section that existed in the 1920s and 30s, prior to the formalisation of the idea of Technocracy with the formation of Tech Inc. It is being used to convey the meaning that these groups had some similar ideas to Technocracy, but were not quite fully Technocratic. So I can't really see why there is any controversy surrounding this, especially as it has only ever been objected to by one user.
  • As for how the Technocracy disambig page should be arranged, as I see it, the only thing that really matters is that the page give links to the various articles, whether we wish to start calling them groups or organisations or movements, or whatever, is really missing the point. We could accurately call it any of these things, but the way Skip has been trying to rewrite it is just silly.
  • As for what groups should be included, now this is the biggest question and comes to the core of what this article is about. As I've stated many times, I believe this article is here to inform the reader about what Technocracy is, what its history is, what groups and individuals make it up and what the beliefs of Technocrats are. To that end, we have a run down of the events and people who contributed to the formation of the basis of Technocratic ideas in the 20s and 30s, Veblen, the Technical Alliance, Scott, and Tech Inc. etc. The article does however lack a lot of the history of the movement beyond the mid 1930s, such as the various splits in Tech Inc. and the rival Technocracy organisations that came about (but later dissolved), also the banning of Technocracy in Canada during World War 2 isn't mentioned at all, so there's still stuff to do there. Then we have the issue of Technocracy outside of North America, the recent spread of the ideas via the internet and the creation of a Technocracy organisation in Europe, I believe all of this is notable and worthy of mention in an encyclopaedic article which seeks to fully inform the reader on the subject.

There's also the issues of getting the Technocracy Study course back as a link and reference, which at the moment means getting the NET site unblocked. Then we still need someone to go through the TSC and the TTCD to get in-line citations for the article, etc, etc.. --Hibernian (talk) 15:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok then

  1. Can we settle on the point that, for the moment at least, the term "Proto-Technate" is not adequately verifiable to be included in this article, and isn't mentioned anyway?
  2. The term Proto-technocratic isn't related to Proto-Technate and and is simply technocratic prefixed with Proto meaning before to give the meaning Before Technocratic or Pre-Technocratic and we could use Pre-Technocratic to avoid any possible confusion?
  3. Can we accept that the "Technocracy Movement" is a group even if it is a group consisting only of Technocracy Incorporated?

(Firebladed (talk) 16:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC))


  • There is no such thing as a proto...pre.. Technate except in net. This word is not a real word. Making up a word like this is confusing... and it is like saying proto-Christian... or proto-Platonic. It is a play on words that conforms to net concepts. Another neologism. It is much more forced terminology than is needed. Pre technocratic in this sense would mean before the existence of the Technical Alliance. That in other words does not make sense here.
  • That word is designed to lead to net of which Hibernian has a vested interest as does Fireblade as one of you is a member the other a registered user.
  • Technocracy movement is a made up term ... made up by net users to get attention to themselves. Obviously Technocracy movement relates to Technocracy Incorporated only. That is not an issue. That group is the movement. Not others that have made the term into something unrelated to gain notoriety.
There's also the issues of getting the Technocracy Study course back as a link and reference, which at the moment means getting the NET site unblocked. Then we still need someone to go through the TSC and the TTCD to get in-line citations for the article, etc, etc.. end quote Hibernian.

Number one you are endorsing a partial copy of a book that is poorly scanned and missing sections. It is an abridged copy that is not endorsed by Technocracy Incorporated. It was put on the internet by the owner of a forum called TechCa of which you are a member and it contains a spam link to that group. Conflict of interest.

Getting the Technocracy Study Course back into the article is not a contention here. The copy you mention is related to a TechCa which you are a member of and net which you are a registered user of. It has a promo link to TechCa.

You are lobbying as a special interest party for net and Techca. The Study Course is already available in multiple links on the internet. It is mentioned already prominently in this article. The net site and its links was blocked because it is considered spam. Isenhand the net director was recently warned on his talk page that if he resurrected the article again he would be blocked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Isenhand

The TTCD that you mention is part of an array of material and links that have been determined to be not really good material already. Check other deletions of links by this Admin.editor. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technocracy_movement&diff=next&oldid=205772871 Redundant linksTechnocracy movement. Just a basic link to their site is needed. That information (TTCD) is also considered by many to be poorly written. It was written/edited partly by Kolzene a wiki editor with a blog/forum of which you are a member Hibernian/Ross Murphy... so you are promoting a document of which you and another wiki editor have a vested interest in promoting. http://www.technocracy.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=Members_List&file=index&letter=I&sortby=uname&authid=b31ea5612f1f6ec34062fd85bc4cdb96 Hibernian user page. Technocracy.ca ... and in effect you have a special interest promotional interest in NET also... Techca also promotes net on their website... http://www.technocracy.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=viewlink&cid=1 NET promo.Technocracy.ca

Again this all leads in a closed loop to Andrew Wallace (Isenhand wiki editor) the net director having written a book that promotes a certain history and brand of thinking about Technate related issues and this Technocracy movement article at one time because of special interest editing conformed to his views as promoted by mono edits by affiliated member and users conforming to a commercial book. httpDISABLE://www.lulu.com/content/750510 Technocracy: Building a new sustainable society for a post carbon world by Andrew Wallace (Book) in Engineering. There is no Technocracy movement except in the commercial ties that bind and are being promoted by single purpose edits here in related articles to conform to a book... the profit of which goes to net. skip sievert (talk) 16:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


Further information on the writing of Andrew Wallace/Isenhand... now do not tell me that both fireblade and Hibernian who are either members or registered users of net are not aware of this neologism word made up by Isenhand... net director/wiki editor/originator of the now gone net wikipedia article. This is the article about this word. From the net website today... This phrase should be taken out as original research if seen in any Technocracy Technate related article. Note that he himself is defining this made up word.

A Proto-Technate.PDF Written by Dr. Andrew Wallace PhD Saturday, 05 May 2007

A proto-technate can be considered to be a network of communities that exist within the current socioeconomic system but are internally run as a technate. That is, externally they interface with the wider society and use money, but internally, positions are filled by those who are most skilled and energy credits are used.

Each community is self-sufficient to some degree. That is, they can produce their own energy, food and manage their own waste. However, they are still integrated within the proto-technate and the proto-technate within the wider society so they are not isolated.

Each community would have a production capability of more than just food. This production capability would be used to produce goods for the proto-technate and to sell to the wider society. Therefore, the proto-technate could also be seen as a business. Establishing a Proto-Technate end quote.

From original research paper by net and currently self published on their site. Here is the disabled link http:DIABLED//en.technocracynet.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56 if people are interested.

This does not square then with what Hibernian has claimed and the original claim of this being a language or word issue. This is a planting original information issue. Fireblade you are aware of this as a net member. You have played ignorant. You and Hibernian should be edit blocked from Technocracy Technate articles along with Kolzene and Isenhand in my opinion for making it about special interest conforming. skip sievert (talk) 21:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

People - perhaps it is time to go back to basics? Regardless of who is a member of what group, Wikipedia has some basic rules. This area obviously has the potential for conflicts of interest (see WP:COI). And there also seems to be a fair bit of original research going on, like the claim that the Star Trek world appears to use a post-scarcity system - see WP:OR.
In such cases, I suggest that everyone reads Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability - and then reads them again. In particular, have a think about number 2 on Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves. For anything contentious, the websites of Technocracy Inc and similar organisations are not admissable as sources for Wikipedia. Following on from that, WP:V says :
Editors should provide a reliable source...for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.
I'll say that again :
Editors should provide a reliable source...for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.
Them's the rules round here. If it would be helpful, I would be happy to help other Wikipedians implement those rules. Sure, that may mean the removal of stuff that is factually correct, but without verification from a WP:RS then it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. And yes, there's lots of unsourced material on Wikipedia, but it gets tolerated as long as it is non-controversial, as part of the development of an article. When you've got an edit war like this, you have to do things the hard way, one sourced statement at a time. If you want an example of really anal referencing, see something like the history section on Zinfandel. :-) I'd suggest that something akin to that is probably the way to go for a topic as controversial as this. In particular, I'd suggest that you get a WP:RS source for any clause using a word ending in -ate. :-)) I'd also remind all editors that Wikipedia admins can block anyone they regard as a disruptive editor and delete their edits. FlagSteward (talk) 14:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok that would mean that anything from Technocracy Inc, NET, Technocracy CA or any other primary sources are not admissible for use as sources in this or Technocracy Incorporated articles, and any citations of this nature should be removed and replaced with 3rd party sources or the section(s) in question should be removed until such time that neutral 3rd party sources can be found.
if FlagSteward, or anyone else wants, to help with doing this I would welcome it, even if it involves taking the article apart and putting it back together again
--Firebladed (talk) 16:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Thinking about it, I'm probably more use to you if I don't edit the article myself, so that I can advise and "referee" while remaining independent. And to be honest I've got a Wikipedia "todo" list a mile long, I might be able to contribute directly some time in October.... :-) FlagSteward (talk) 18:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
thats fine with me, assistance by giving neutral feedback, is just as good, if not better in this situation, as any other kind --Firebladed (talk) 19:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Article cleanup

Just to make clear, you can use Technocracy Inc as a source for non-controversial, solid "facts", like the date they published a newsletter. But that's about as far as it goes, I'd be wary of using them for anything concerning the theories of Technocracy itself. And Firebladed, you need to have another read of WP:OR, OR is not for unverified facts, it's more akin to unfounded speculation - the second sentence about Star Trek is a great example of OR. {{fact}} tags should used for any statement of fact that does not have a solid reference - in other words just about every other sentence in this article except for the ones you've tagged. ;-/ But I think you're probably right, that rather than smother this article in tags, rewriting it from scratch is probably the way to go - you may want to start sketching an article out at User:Firebladed/Sandbox and then once it's in reasonable shape, you can just copy it across here.FlagSteward (talk) 18:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

ok, ill fix the tags them then look at drafting a new version--Firebladed (talk) 19:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


It could be that the very premise of this article (Technocracy movement) was wrong in its original conception. Technocracy is a common word that is defined by any number of groups that are not connected to the original groups actual ideas.. and these are the basic reference points of the article. Techno anarchist Technocrats.. arnarcho communist Technocrats ... green Technocrats... and on and on.
Since originally this article was probably a vehicle to promote, in particular a website that has since been determined to be a commercial non notable spam related site... it may be that this article is better put up as an article for possible deletion (my opinion). The main information is already covered in the Technocracy Incorporated article to better effect. There is a lot of original opinion research in this article based on secondary sources that may not be reliable as they come from a variety of fiction or opinion books.
In other words it may be a mistake to claim that there is a Technocracy movement beyond the actual historically acknowledged movement of Technocracy Incorporated which is still active and active. That movement has said from the very beginning in the Technocracy Study Course and other published information that they are not affiliated with any other group in Europe or elsewhere.
They specifically state that. They incorporated originally to that purpose.. to insure that their information was not adopted by other groups. skip sievert (talk) 23:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yep, you could have a good point, I'd been thinking that it was maybe appropriate to merge the two articles in any case since they largely duplicate each other. And confining it to Technocracy Inc's take on things makes it much easier to write a good article than an article about a fuzzy "movement". Within that article you can still have a para or two about the Inc's antecedents, as this article does at present. So yes, Firebladed I suggest you think in terms of writing a new Technocracy Inc article while a merger is discussed, I'm open to persuasion that the two articles should be kept separate but at the moment I would support a merger of this article into Technocracy Inc. FlagSteward (talk) 00:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
writing a good Technocracy Inc article is would be a good staring point, which I will look at doing
The concept of this movement article may well have be based on a flawed understanding of wikipedia criteria, and therefore may well need all the Tech Inc content merging back into the tech inc article, and anything notable left over rewiting from scratch and possibly moving else where.
Though I would suggest that there may be scope for an article or section on the "ideological decedents" of Technocracy Inc, if sufficient sources for verifiability and notability are available, since there certainly are group(s) that claim to be, whether they are affiliated or not. But that should be done on strict interpretation of the wikipedia inclusion criteria, and only done after the Tech Inc article is redone.
--Firebladed (talk) 01:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


Well.. unfortunetely.. as a registered representative of a special interest group for net.. Fireblade as a registered user and member.. you are here promoting net.. which is a commercial group with a commercial website. Therefore you represent a special interest group. Any special interest groups in general are interested in depriving others in the sense of information about alternatives as they promote a party line . Such is the nature of special interest groups. If... and it is a very big if.. you are interested in the actual ideas of Technocracy Technate concepts and not just representing a so called group (net) of which you are a member .. fine. skip sievert (talk) 04:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


That is so laughable, the idea the Skip Sievert is accusing other people of being biased, this is the same Skip who is undoubtedly the most biased, un-neutral editor ever involved with this. You've never even made a single neutral edit in the entire time you've been on Wiki, everything you add has something to do with your opinions and biases, it's quite amazing. "Special Interests", Skip you act as a one man special interest group throughout the internet. But unfortunately that's Skip all over, if someone doesn't agree with you, drag their name through the mud and hope some of it sticks.
Anyway about the articles, it is entirely possible to re-merge the Technocracy Movement and Technocracy Incorporated pages, since the Tech Inc. article currently has no unique content, and was basically just created on Skip's insistence. In order to merge it all you need to do is replace the word "movement" everywhere in the article with "incorporated", not hard. However before doing this we need to get to grips with what this new merged article will be about, will it just be about Tech Inc? or will it be about the whole history of everything associated with Technocracy? I think Firebladed's idea of having sections on "Related Groups" (or whatever) is workable.
Secondly I think people are getting a bit ahead of themselves when saying things like, Tech Inc. can't be used as a source, that's plainly ridiculous, we can easily have a completely neutral statement such as "Technocrats believe X, Y, Z" and then cite a source from Tech Inc. which shows that they do indeed believe "X, Y, Z", that sort of thing doesn't need secondary sources. If on the other had we said "X, Y, Z is a fact" then that would not be neutral or acceptable without secondary sourcing.
It's also pretty strange to say that we shouldn't try to cite things about Technocratic theory from Technocratic sources, that's like saying you shouldn't use "The Communist Manifesto" (or some other work by leading communists) when writing an article about Communism. Obviously such things would be very useful and acceptable in such an article, as long as it's presented in a neutral way, which is after all the primary concern. BTW this was all discussed at length last year, so we're sort of going around in circles here, ask Wafulz, etc. --Hibernian (talk) 06:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
First off guys - please will everyone read WP:Assume good faith and WP:No personal attacks - I'll remind people again that editors can be blocked from Wikipedia if you don't play by Wikipedia's rules. In particular note that :
  • If criticism is needed, discuss editors' actions, but it is never necessary or productive to accuse others of harmful motives.
  • Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks will not help you make a point
So please - can we have no more sentences beginning "You are a member of...."? Just concentrate on people's edits, not who they are. Instead concentrate on finding reference material, because at the moment 95% of the Technocracy content on Wikipedia is going to be removed.
On Skip's suggestion to delete this article - I'd rather not do it that way, merging will retain an archive of all the discussion on this page, whereas it would be lost in a deletion. There's no great hurry, I'd rather see a clear majority emerge for a merger among the regular editors here, given the controversy I'd rather leave it for a week or two just so that all points of view are heard.
On Hibernian's example - discussing Communism without using the Manifesto as a source is exactly how Wikipedia does it, the Mainfesto is in the Further Reading section but not the references. :-) That's a bit of a special case, as The Communist Manifesto has its own article, and to be honest the Communism article isn't that great, but it gives you some idea. Quoting from "manifestos" is useful as far as it goes, just remember that bit about "non-controversial". So it's fine to cite the Mainfesto to say that Marx and Engels regarded improvement of the soil and agriculture as one of the main planks of Communism (#7 in fact), but it would be wrong to cite it as evidence that they supported organic farming. And in the internet age, it's much easier for people to publish all sorts of crap on their website, in controversial cases like this it's much better to prefer paper sources - there's already been a case on this page of disputes arising over different versions of a document published on the web. Firebladed is doing exactly the right thing in going to government and university archives, third party sources that are easily checked by all web users. What I was going to suggest was that in the first instance everyone concentrates on the pre-WWII history, including the Gibbs and Technical Alliance stuff as now. To start with, just the basics of "X wrote book Y in 19xx", "A founded organisation B in 19xx" and so on - get that referenced up, I guess there should be lots of solid references for that kind of stuff, such as Akin book? Once that basic timeline is established, then you can start filling out the ideas - in book D, E wrote F <ref>(page 123 of edition E)</ref> and so on. Not only does that period appear to be quite well referenced, it should be relatively easy to achieve consensus on what ideas were around at the time, since the movement was pretty monolithic then. And the distance of time just helps to look at things objectively. Once you've established a consensus on that firm historical bedrock, you can move on to the more controversial recent stuff. I suggest that you have two sections, one explaining the development of ideas within Technocracy Inc after WWII, and a separate section entitled "Influence" or "Legacy" or some such, covering the other groups who draw inspiration from Scott and colleagues, whether splinter groups from TI or completely unrelated. That way you should be able to convey the full spectrum of views and organisations. But keep it reasonable - if you've more than a paragraph or so of sourced material on a particular group, then it may be time to start a separate article on that group. And I'll emphasise, I think you should really work up the pre-WWII stuff before starting on the more recent developments within the movement. FlagSteward (talk) 13:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The only problem I have with university and government archives is the difficulty of actually reading the stuff what with me not being in America and most of what I have found so far not being available online, suppose i could see what would take to get hold of some photocopies --Firebladed (talk) 14:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

FlagSteward, I mostly agree with you (except about removing 95% of the content, that's a bit over the top). I stand by what I said about primary sourcing from the Technocracy Study course (TSC) though, it can be done that way and is done that way throughout Wiki, there shouldn't be any problem doing it here (at the very least we could have it as further reading as you suggest). But what I would like to ask you about is your reference to controversial and non-controversial content. What exactly are you referring to with this? And who decides what's controversial and what isn't?

As far as I'm aware there isn't a whole lot of controversy about the content here. The disputes that have been occurring recently, centred around Skip, were more to do with style then content, i.e. whether it should be "proto-technocratic" or "pre-technocratic", or "one of the most notable" vs. "the most notable", etc. Besides that, the difficulties with this editor sadly don't necessarily have anything to do with Wikipedia. --Hibernian (talk) 09:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I was just trying to emphasise the Wikirules about how any content without reliable 3rd party references can be removed - as that is currently true of 95% of the technocracy content round here. I was trying to catch people's attention and redirect all the energy being expended on this page into more constructive use, namely finding more WP:RS. As I say, the "nice" way to build an article is through consensus and leaving unsourced-but-true stuff in there until a source can be found, but there is another way that sticks to the letter of the law.
As for what is controversial - it's pretty much self-defining. Any part of an article that gets caught in an edit war. :-) Or which has the potential for the same. So noone's going to argue much if you state that the US started bombing Vietnam on 2 March 1965. That's uncontroversial - and that kind of stuff is generally pretty easy to source in any case, which is why I suggested that people start with the bare-bones history. Whether Vietnam was a war of self-defence or naked aggression depends on your point of view - so you'd need to cite sources expressing those points of view. In fact you provide some good examples of how to use sources. You should be really careful about inventing words that a casual reader might assume were jargon words that had some specific meaning - and constructs using Latin or Greek roots are a great way to give that impression. This is where primary sources like the Communist Manifesto (in your example) can come in. If Scott or someone used the phrase "proto-technate" in a particular context that can be sourced in a document like the TSC, then you can use it in the article indicating the context in which he meant it. Otherwise you should avoid it altogether, and talk about "the early stages of a technate" or whatever, using English makes it clear that you're not using a word with a specific meaning. On the other hand opinions like "the most notable" can only be established by third party sources, something like the Akin book, or should be removed altogether.. If you can't find a reliable third party source to back up your personal opinion, just accept that you are either mistaken or at least your view is not that of the mainstream that Wikipedia seeks to represent. ;-/ Some more guidelines that would be useful for people to read are WP:PEACOCK and WP:WEASEL - some quotes :
  • In Wikipedia articles, try to avoid peacock terms which merely promote the subject of the article without imparting real information. Examples include describing people as "important" or "among the greatest" in their field without explaining why. Peacock terms often reflect unqualified opinion, and usually do not help establish the significance of an article.
  • Weasel words are small phrases attached to the beginning of a statement, such as "some argue that..." or "critics say..."...If a statement is true without weasel words, remove them. If they are needed for the statement to be true, consider removing the statement. FlagSteward (talk) 12:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


Hibernian is continuing to use this talk page as a personal attack blog. Has not he been repeatedly warned? Quote.. As far as I'm aware there isn't a whole lot of controversy about the content here. The disputes that have been occurring recently, centred around Skip, were more to do with style then content, i.e. whether it should be "proto-technocratic" or "pre-technocratic", or "one of the most notable" vs. "the most notable", etc. Besides that, the difficulties with this editor sadly don't necessarily have anything to do with Wikipedia. --Hibernian (talk) 09:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC) ..end quote.

What is the point of making statements like this? Any disputes have not centered around me they have centered on content. I am complaining directly about the conduct of this user Hibernian. Proto-technocratic or pre-technocratic ? I am not arguing for either obviously. Also I am not arguing for the most notable or most notable... I am arguing for one of many notable members. That is the edit in question. skip sievert (talk) 13:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Possible Sources

Please only use this section to list sources, with a brief summary (10-30 words) not discuss them

ok on doing some inital reseach i have found offcial online records of The founding of Technocracy Incorperated TECHNOCRACY, INCORPORATED. NYS Department of State - Division of Corporations - Entity Information

and What looks like potentially a good verifiable secondary source and possibly also a primary source of information, if can work out how to get better access Administrative History of Technocracy Inc. - University of Alberta Archives --Firebladed (talk) 10:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

though on reading a bit closer there is a back reference to here, so can't use that part as circular references are a bad idea --Firebladed (talk) 11:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

there is also the 1934 copy of the technocracy study course in the library of congress that would be a primary source, that could be used as a basis of a summary of the content of study course, but not much else.


Obviously the Akin book will be a good source for the early history. William E. Akin - Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (1977). Although I understand it doesn't deal with Technocracy's plan much, however I've never read the book and don't have access to it, so it will require someone who knows it to reference it. I think User:Kolzene has read it and I know User:Isenhand has, because he added the references initially, though I don't know if either of them will be contributing to this. BTW nice fines there Firebladed, although I can't seem to gain access to two of those pages. --Hibernian (talk) 10:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I stumbled across this website a while ago, it way be of use, http://archive1.lse.ualberta.ca/FindingAids/Technocracy/technocracy.html although I'm not entirely sure how to use it. --Hibernian (talk) 10:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


History and Purpose of Technocracy: Howard Scott

As what I would call a good reference point for a good understanding and background this may be one of the best information connections ever written on this subject. I encourage all participants again to take the time to give this a read. http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/History%20&%20Purpose-r.htm skip sievert (talk) 21:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This document is fine by me, though it would have to be stressed that the info in it are Scott's opinions, so we would have to quote from it like: "According to Howard Scott..." etc. --Hibernian (talk) 10:11, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


The Technical Alliance Profiles

This would seem to be a good resource for this article. It points out the many notable members related to the original group. It is about the precursor of the Technocracy movement or Technocracy Incorporated the Technical Alliance. http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/Technical%20Alliance%20Profiles-r.htm

These are a few of the members that went on to form Technocracy Incorporated and also give some of the antecedents of the group. It mentions Willard Gibbs (Howard Scott leader of the Technical Alliance and later Technocracy Incorporated cited Gibbs as the intellectual scientific forefather of the concepts of Technocracy) in a very prominent way. skip sievert (talk) 14:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


University of British Columbia Technocracy Movement Fonds —Preceding unsigned comment added by Firebladed (talk • contribs) 20:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussing sources for article

I do not think the Akin book is a good source. It is a fiction book written from a sociological perspective. It is not readily available to access unless purchased somewhere.. and essays and commentary about the book do not seem to exist. In other words it appears to be someones opinion more than any thing (William E. Akin - Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (1977). It appears to be a commercial venture written with a sociological point of view and as I have seen snippets from it it does not seem to understand the subject or the history of the subject. skip sievert (talk) 13:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Skip, it's an ordinary history book, of-course you have to purchase it, I don't think Akin's publishers were running a charity. As for your "assessment" of it, well that's your opinion, it certainly isn't a "fiction book" (whatever that's supposed to mean), it's Akin's historical study of the Technocracy movement, whether it includes his opinions or not, I can't say, but it is a serious historical book. I am aware that many Technocrats who read it thought that many parts were inaccurate, this may be because it apparently contradicts some of what Scott says in that interview (i.e. the "official" view of Technocracy's history). Either way, having both never read it we aren't qualified to judge it. Regardless of that, it is one of the only books published on the subject and so we've got to use it. --Hibernian (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry Skip, you can't just trash a source like that. I know nothing about Akin himself, but the fact that the book is published by a reputable university press makes it quite acceptable as one source for this article. It would obviously be a mistake to rely on it exclusively, but as a source for individual statements within the article, it is fine. If you have a problem with one of those statements, then the onus is on you to find reliable, third-party sources that say otherwise, and then we find a way of including both points of view within the article. But you can't just come out with a general "I don't like that book". And of course the act of publishing a book is a commercial venture, although for a university press that is less the case. Conversely the stakes for publishing incorrect information are much higher too, at least a university press should have reasonable copy-editors. But books are the very heart of the verification mechanisms of Wikipedia, so if you have a problem with paid-for books as a source, then you have a problem with the very way that Wikipedia works. If you don't like that particular book, then let's see you come up with third-party references that you do like. And by third party, I mean not on the Technocracy Inc website....
On other matters, I welcome your second thoughts about some of your recent edits to this page. Sure Hibernian was being a little provocative, but no more than that, and you should be smart enough not to rise to the bait. Remember that I, and indeed any Wikipedia administrator, can look in the archives of this page to see exactly what each editor has said in the past. So there's no need to "help" by bringing up past arguments, let's restrict discussion to how to make the article better in the future, not dredging up old history. Just to be explicit, consider this a second warning. From now on, if any editor starts talking on this page about any other editor, by name or by implication, I'll initiate proceedings to suspend their Wikipedia account for a few days. FlagSteward (talk) 14:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

the website Hibernian found a while ago looks to be the same one i found, i just linked it differently, labeling based on what looks to be its title. what it is, from my understanding, is a summary of a set of archived technocracy information, with information on the scope and content of the archive, access restrictions, how the archive is organized and where in the university's archive it is located. --Firebladed (talk) 22:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This does look like a good source to use. http://archive1.lse.ualberta.ca/FindingAids/Technocracy/Technocracy.html Technocracy Fonds Finding Aid. It is packed with information and is written well besides. I say go ahead and add it Fireblade.. as a reference or link. This is interesting and maybe this could be used here.. The movement continued to expand during the remainder of the war and new sections were formed in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces (Encyclopedia Canadiana, 1968 edition, pp. 29).. There is some pretty good historical reference aspect to as to when and where certain things happened.

Also... the articles of incorporation of the group from New York with the time and place seems like a really excellent reference. Lets use both of these references somehow in the TechInc and the TechMove articles. skip sievert (talk) 00:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

proto-technates

I just reverted the article to the previous edit which is minus the term proto-technate. This seemed like a good idea considering the discussions we have had now on proto/technates/technate/technocratic terminology. careful about inventing words that a casual reader might assume were jargon words that had some specific meaning - and constructs using Latin or Greek roots are a great way to give that impression. This is where primary sources like the Communist Manifesto (in your example) can come in. If Scott or someone used the phrase "proto-technate" in a particular context that can be sourced in a document like the TSC, then you can use it in the article indicating the context in which he meant it. Otherwise you should avoid it altogether, and talk about "the early stages of a technate" or whatever, using English makes it clear that you're not using a word with a specific meaning.

There are a lot of little side issues also as to the reason for this last revert.. most having to do with language issues. skip sievert (talk) 19:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Although I said I wasn't going to edit the article directly, I've redone the 1920s section, removing the two "controversial" phrases altogether, as there really wasn't any need for them, it was all a bit of a fuss about nothing. I'd agree that Hubbert probably was the most notable member of the organisation, but you can't say that in a Wiki article without a 3rd party quote. In fact it looks like Hubbert was much more than just a member, in his testimony to the Board of Economic Warfare he claims to have inspired the second coming of the Technical Alliance. I'm not entirely happy with that testimony as a source just because its on hubbertpeak.com, I'd prefer it to be sourced from a US government archive site or at a pinch from a university website, if someone can track down a copy. But it is only being used to source matters of fact - either he was or he wasn't Secretary of TI, either he did or he didn't have dinner with Scott and so on. If someone can find a third-party source, then we could remove the precautionary "According to Hubbert". I've also formally tagged the article for merger into the TI one. FlagSteward (talk) 12:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

FlagSteward, unfortunately your edit there wasn't particularly accurate, you've now stated that all those groups were inspired by Josiah Willard Gibbs, which is just not correct. Gibbs was a 19th century scientist who did work on Thermodynamics, in various interviews Howard Scott claimed that Gibbs' work on "Energy Determinants" inspired him to invent the idea of Energy Accounting, etc. However Gibbs had no direct or indirect involvement with the creation of the ideas that would lead to Technocracy, he just invented some of the mathematical side of it (but not for that purpose). He died in 1903 and didn't invent any of the ideas of Technocracy besides the energy analysis, he never met with Scott or any of those who went on to come up with the ideas of Technocracy, and most likely had no idea what his work was going to be used for by others long after his death. So he is really very incidental to the history of Technocracy. Skip is the only one who has been pushing Gibbs (even going so far as to add a link to him in almost every Technocracy related article), apparently ever since he heard Scott saying that he was significant. This is again one of those areas where Scott's version of the History differs from historians like Akin, hopefully we can come to a comprise about that in time, but what you added there actually isn't accurate. Also you seem to have added that the Technical Alliance broke up in the 1920s, yet it was my understanding that they existed right up until Tech Inc. was formed in 1933. So what's that about? On a related note, shouldn't the merge tag be the other way around? I thought you said you were planning to merge the Technocracy Incorporated article into this one, and then re-name this article, in order to preserve the talk page and edit histories, etc. I assume that will involve re-naming this article Tech Inc. and deleted the Tech Inc. one after the merge has been made right? --Hibernian (talk) 12:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Taylorism New Machine Industrial management Henry L. Gant have no place in the article

Please continue FlagSteward to edit the article.. you made an objective improvement in my opinion.

Here is another issue that needs attention. As said in my opinion either the Akin book is based from what I consider a narrow point of view that does not reflect a lot of the actual ideas that are trying to be connected with it or it may have been misquoted. It is not historical in the sense that it does not reflect the dynamic of the origin of the movement except in an abstract theoretical opinion unconnected way as to the beginning of Technocracy Incorporated and may even be misquoted in context of the article. Example is the view that Technocracy concept was influenced by Taylorism Scientific management. It was not.. but it says it was to a degree..lesser degree is an abstract weasel word possibly in the article.

Here is an interesting statement made by Howard Scott in http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/History%20&%20Purpose-r.htm History and Purpose of Technocracy... while granted Howard Scott is not the end all or be all and it may be a primary source.. but this was put out by TechInc to explain to people their antecedents. It is not the personal opinion of just Scott but a statement in an article by the organization as an official policy of their history and I see no reason to doubt its accuracy. Scott quotes italicized.

Frederick Taylor came up with a set of guide rules on how management could obtain greater productivity from labor by making human labor more efficient. (This is the complete opposite of what the Technical Alliance was doing and then TechInc. They were concerned with the extraneous energy produced by machines and getting rid of human labor.)

Taylor's series of scientific time studies and measurements of work (human effort), scored quite a hit in the era preceding World War I and just after World War 1.

A number of engineers became so-called disciples of Frederick W. Taylor, even though he had passed on to his reward in 1915. A considerable number of engineers took up the so-called scientific management of Frederick Taylor and further embroidered it and publicized themselves as efficiency engineers and management consultants. Henry L. Gant had been Taylor's assistant at the Midvale Steel and the Bethlehem Steel Company. Gant, Morris L. Cook, Leffingwell, Emerson, H. K. Hathaway, Frank B. Gilbreth, Harlow S. Person and C.J. Barth were among the many prominent advocates of Taylor's efficiency system with some variations. Gant, Barth and others tried to start an organization, ``The New Machine. ``The New Machine never got off the ground; all of them wrote articles and delivered papers in the engineering societies and management conferences. But their chief purpose was in creating a national image so they could sell their services to large-scale private enterprise as scientific managers and efficiency engineers who would be able to install the system that could extract more productivity from the American worker. We never had any use for Taylor or any of the efficiency or scientific management crowd (my emphasis). They never realized that human toil was the last thing in the world you had to be efficient about; the only way to be really efficient is to eliminate it entirely, and this would have been heresy to any of the Taylor, Gant, Barth, Cook efficiency crowd. It is sad to contemplate that men of the technical ability of the names mentioned in this paragraph were so lame in their thinking and social outlook that they missed the boat so completely. Who in hell wants to be efficient with a shovel, and what sense would there be even if you succeeded? end quote.

So here is another point.. saying that the New Machine is connected to the Technocracy movement/Technical Alliance or Gibbs is just not so. The soviet of Technicians was neither connected with Gibbs. Gibbs mathematics (Energy vector analysis.. the basis of energy accounting) was only connected to the Technical Alliance group and then Technocracy Incorporated. The point being that the origin of Technocracy movement as it relates to this article was a unique concept invented by Howard Scott using Gibbs vector analysis. It had no historical precedent. What ever later spin offs in ten years following the formation in 1918 of the original group were all connected with members of that original group using this original concept based on physics. The original concepts were never adopted by other groups not connected with the original Technical Alliance group. The article does say this though because it is misconstrued in the Akin book apparently or was interpreted wrongly to imply a connection. This seems like a very basic flaw in the article at present. Scientific management which is all about Taylorism should not be a connector reference in the article for these reasons. skip sievert (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the same issue we went over months ago and which I mentioned earlier, essentially some of what's in Akin's book contradicts what Scott says (and vice versa). The particular details of it a pretty complicated, but it seems that Akin was attempting to show the relationships between the various Progressive, Technical, science-orientated groups and ideas, that were going around from about 1910 to 1930, and showing how they influenced each other and the eventually Technocracy idea. Now whether Akin's account is correct or Scott's account is, I can't say, I'm not an expert of the period and neither is anyone else here. So I think the best we can do at the moment is state what Akin says, but where it clearly contradicts Scott’s account, perhaps that should be mentioned. Like for example: "In his book, Akin notes that A B C happened, however Scott in his account disagrees and states X Y Z occurred." etc... Something like that perhaps. --Hibernian (talk) 12:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

My last edits

Concerning these last edits [2], [3], [4], I would like to explain here my rational for making them. Firstly as I was expressing to FlagSteward, some of the edits he made were incorrect, I understand that he was attempting to make an edit that would put a controversy to bed, but in doing so inserted inaccurate info into the article. I rewrote it, and as I was doing so, I tried very hard to think of a way to express the sentence without using "proto-technocratic", but when it came down to it, that is the most succinct and accurate term I can think of so I've just kept it. It's really the only term I can think of to express that very specific meaning, the only other way is to have a convoluted sentence or two explaining how they were partially technocratic but not completely so, or how they shared many ideas but not necessarily the program of Technocracy, etc. BTW this document you found FlagSteward, http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/Technocracy1943.pdf is very interesting, I wasn't aware of it previously but now that I've read it its quite insightful. It seems to be a good source, although one issue I have about it is the date of the Technical Alliance’s break up, I now understand where you got that reference from, although I must say I'm not that convinced by the date that Hubbert gives there. I was always told the TA existed up until 1933 (that's what it says in its article), Hubbert suggests it was gone by the some time in the 20s, but do we know that Hubbert was correct? He admits that he wasn't there and he didn't give a specific date, not to mention the fact that he was giving this info in front of a hostile committee trying to have him fired. So can we really use that as a reliable source?

As for my third edit there, it was a reversion of Skip's, I have reverted the very same one before and Skip has not justified it in any way, just deleted sentences without discussion. Firstly as for "consuming power" vs. "purchasing power", the sentence is talking about the Price system therefore the term purchasing power is being used, it also has a link which consuming power doesn't, therefore it should be left alone. Secondly Skip has persisted in deleting certain sentences from the Urbanate section, why he is doing this I do not know, if he had read the references he would know that Urbanates are proposed to have multiple facilities, and that they would eliminate cars and that the design calls for the abandonment of traditional cities. If he is deleting these things because he personally disagrees with them, then that’s just not an acceptable way if editing. --Hibernian (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Consuming power

I think it is an important point not to confuse economic terms with what is being described as the program of Energy Accounting. The amount of consuming power given to each citizen would be calculated by determining the total productive capacity of the technate and dividing it equally (minus the maintenance of the infrastructure). The Energy units or certificates, themselves would probably not have to be physically used by the populace, as the system would be computerised.

That system does not equate to purchasing power.. as nothing is purchased.. only consumed. Within the context of the article and sentence it is a description of the process as this is a description of a non-monatary system and how it works... energy accounting.skip sievert (talk) 18:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The point I was making Skip, is that the sentence mentioning purchasing power was specially about the price system. And the fact that it has a link to an article explaining the term makes it a better choice in this case. BTW I'm not so sure I agree with you assessment that nothing can be purchased in a Technate, it's a matter of semantics really. I mean for example, you can consume an apple, but you can't really consume a table can you? --Hibernian (talk) 09:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Personally id say that neither consume or purchase is entirely correct, though you could argue that if you take the definition "To obtain in exchange for money or its equivalent; buy." you could use it as it includes equivalents of money i.e energy and as Hibernian says there are things that you don`t really consume, but if you use like it is used in economics terms "A consumer is a person who uses any product or service" so it is possible to argue that both could be used, at the moment unless a better term can be found I would stick with consumed as it ties in with the use of the word in economics and is more general, both are used as price system terms in economics anyway --Firebladed (talk) 11:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Consumed it is for the basic reason mentioned.. A consumer is a person who uses any product or service. Also lets not confuse the context. This is a description of Energy Accounting given from the view of Technocracy Incorporated as they describe it. The sentence in the article is not only not specifically about the Price System it is specifically about the mechanism of energy accounting as described by this group. Money terms are not applicable to explain this system from the point of view of explaining what the group was doing from their perspective. That is really confusing and would lead to a false presentation. Whether someplace has a link to something... is a moot point if the link does not reflect the subject. It is not a matter of semantics. Not at all. Energy accounting is not a replacement of a monetary system using a monetary system word structure. It is an entirely different system. A consumer is a person who uses any product or service skip sievert (talk) 15:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


A very well researched early history

The new section here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic)....(The technocratic instinct among engineers and its outcomes).. goes a long way in explaining in very concise language the dynamic of this early period we are now dealing with reediting this article with sources/citations/references. This information would integrate the information mentioned in the beginning of the article very well.. it is well referenced and cited and accurate as to the flow of events and the players involved... Taylorism.. Scientific management..Early groups and their relationship to the term Technocracy etc.

From the article.. Technocracy is one solution to a problem faced by engineers in the early twentieth century. Following Samuel Haber[1] Donald Stabile argues that engineers were faced with a conflict between physical efficency and cost efficiency in the new corporate capitalist enterprises of the late nineteenth century USA.

Profit-conscious, nontechnical managers of the firm where the engineers work, because of their perceptions of market demand, often impose limits on the projects the engineer desires to undertake; workers do not perform according to the specifications of the engineer's plans; and the prices of all inputs vary with market forces thereby upsetting the engineer's careful calculations. As a result, the engineer loses control over his own little world and must continually revise his plans. To keep his little world secure, the engineer is forced to extend his control over these outside variables and transform them into constant factors.[2]

Engineers heatedly discussed these issues in US engineering journals and proceedings. Three ideological outcomes were produced. Firstly, Taylorism which integrates price structures into engineering concerns, thus producing scientific management where the capitalist manager and engineer divide control over the production process and working class between themselves. Secondly, building on Taylorism the Soviet Union implemented socialist-Taylorism where economic planning, a political bureaucracy and a technical elite divided control over the economy through institutions like the GOELRO plan or five year plans. While political concerns influenced Soviet planning, and engineers were politically persecuted; the political bureaucracy designed plans so as to achieve technical outcomes, and used production price accounting as a technical, rather than economic measure. Finally, in the United States a view that technical concerns should take precedence developed among engineers such as William Howard Smyth based on the early conception of Industrial democracy which was limited merely to the technical government of firms. This school of thought amongst engineers eventually produced social institutions arguing for purely technical government of society in the 1930s. end from article.

I have invited Fifelfoo to help us. He made the excellent addition above to the other article. I hope he is interested in doing that here in a modified way that fits the subject here. Also if FlagSteward would care to take a stab at integrating this information into the article.. or any one else it would lead to a dramatic sourced cited improvement. skip sievert (talk) 14:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Merged Article Draft

im currently working on a draft of a merged version of Technocracy movement and technocracy incorporated articles at User:Firebladed/newtincdraft, as this is in my userspace, can everyone please not edit the draft (other than adding citation requests or spelling corrections), as it if it gets in the way of my train of thought I may just revert them,

if have any comments or suggestions put them on the subpage's talk page

it is currently a work in progress so I may add/remove or alter large chunks of it

also i am leaving out the images for the moment, will add later when have text sorted (so don't have to shuffle them about) --Firebladed (talk) 08:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


Well it's OK as a draft but it will definitely need a lot of work, some of the facts in there aren’t actually correct, or at-least need to be re-phrased. Also one issue, how do you know that Technocracy Inc.'s "Official Language" is English? I didn't even know they had an official language. --Hibernian (talk) 15:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
to tell the truth I hadn't noticed that it says "official language", they might not have an "official" language so I don't specifically, but all there "official" publications are in English and they are based in America so I put English in the template parameter and moved on, can always remove it.
If you point out the parts that you think are incorrect and why ill look at changing them,but as I said its a work in progress, with me copying parts chuck at a time out of the two articles and editing as necessary
--Firebladed (talk) 16:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What does this mean? # to provide a skeleton organization capable of forming the Technate of North America in the event of a final collapse of the social and economic order based on the price system.... end quote... this is not correct. It does not provide a skeleton organization. It provides the information of research and education as to how to get a Technate. And... It does not have an assumption to power theory. It never had one and does not have one now. It only promotes its research and suggestions for a scientific social design. It never promoted the idea of a final collapse of the Price System as a prerequisite for their program. Ever. It is a research and educational group.

Also repeating the information about Taylorism or scientific managment being a part of the information connected is not correct. It is not connected in a greater or lessor degree at all. It was around at the time and before but does not play a role in the information put out by the members and side members connected. Also Smythe was not referring to the actual movement in question here ... but was referring to just a mechanism of the current and then being used price system. As it stands this explanation of the beginning is not good and does not reflect the dynamic. Integrate the information presented above about the Engineers and historical context please... time period from here.. and you may have something http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic) That section about Veblen now and scientific management does not reflect the historical antecedents the way you have it. skip sievert (talk) 17:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(Hmm... Skip just posted before me) Well probably my main concern is the way some of the info is presented, but seeing as it's only a draft I won't go into details about that at this point. Some things that don't seem to be correct are in the "Ideas and goals" section, you've stated that Technocracy is engaged in "economic research", I don't think that's correct since it was really the Technical Alliance that did the price system analysis, and Tech Inc. is now against Economics of any kind. That makes them sound like an economic institute or something. Also I don't think it's correct to say that their goal is to create a "skeleton organization capable of forming the Technate", I've never heard any Technocrat say that the organization was trying to form the Technate, in-fact they specifically say that they will dissolve themselves the minute a Technate is formed and Technocrats wont be part of the Technate's administration by default, that would all be based on meritocracy not on whether people were Technocrats. The way you've stated it makes it sound like Tech Inc is planning to run the Technate, which is not the case. Apart from that the draft is too thin at the moment to really comment much more. --Hibernian (talk) 17:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Almost forgot, about the "official language" thing, unless you know that they have one then that should probably be left out. --Hibernian (talk) 17:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I only put history there this morning and haven't done a lot on it yet, as to the ideas and goals section I have at least one source which says those were stated goals so would need something to disagree with that, though I will reword it as that was in 1968 so they could well be different now, and ill look for more sources in that area.
If I can`t find sources to backup statements or claims ill remove them, but I'm starting with what's currently in both articles
As to economics, I've read through quite a lot of stuff, including their website and haven't seen anything to say they are against economics, indeed being against economics would not make sense unless you are redefining the word (economics is defined as "the science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, or the material welfare of humankind." which is exactly what they are about), but they certainly are against anyone having "economic power" over citizens which is something different.
--Firebladed (talk) 20:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I only put history there this morning and haven't done a lot on it yet, as to the ideas and goals section. Fireblade...quote I have at least one source which says those were stated goals so would need something to disagree with that, though I will reword it as that was in 1968 so they could well be different now, end quote. and ill look for more sources in that area.

You either read it wrong... what ever it was.. or it was not from the group TechInc. One of the main issues here with the first aspect of the article is to get rid of the information that is historically not true and reference to material that was not really well sourced in a conforming to the actual history sense.

What is the source for the above ? where did it come from ? That would totally be at odds with the published goals of the organization. skip sievert (talk) 22:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

no I didn`t read it wrong, yes is about Technocracy Inc, and it is cited on line right below it --Firebladed (talk) 22:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What may I ask are you reading from ? The material quoted from where ? What is the specific source? You are quoting from an old wikipedia edit which is now deleted (the origin which was not sourced because there is no reflection in the material from the group) it was the opinion of an earlier unsourced wikipedia edit... or information that was written outside of the organization (unsourced) The University.. when they tried to present the material donated to them used a faulty wiki edit from a year ago.

It is wikipedia based from the time. That is the reason we are editing this stuff because it is not accurate at all to the topic. That means you are giving a false description of the information with a not really good source in this instance which can not be backed up by the overwhelming information that contradicts it. You are quoting from the Canadian fonds finding ? They have written their material from old deleted wikipedia stuff from a while back. They had to present it somehow... and they sure did not use a good source in this case. Come on ... this is in no way connected to the information from the group. No way. Lets not turn this into an exercise of bad sources. I suggest you take a break and take a little time and read this source very carefully before proceeding. http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/History%20&%20Purpose-r.htm

History and Purpose of Technocracy.... Really their is no shortage of flights of fancy to describe peoples opinions about the group. Lets not add to them. skip sievert (talk) 23:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

it is from the finding aid, but the section it is from if you look closely is referenced from (Encyclopedia Canadiana, 1968 edition, pp. 29) which I am looking to see if I can check myself --Firebladed (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


The information is unfortunately garbled together from multiple sources and not accurate in this particular case.. although some other info they have is accurate. I do recognize the old wiki edit from either this article or the TechInc article about the collapse of the price system being the entree. This is absolutely not so. Never was so.. and was edited out of the article some time ago. They referenced old and incorrect wiki material for their material presentation.

This you are right about.. As to economics, I've read through quite a lot of stuff, including their website and haven't seen anything to say they are against economics, indeed being against economics would not make sense unless you are redefining the word (economics is defined as "the science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, or the material welfare of humankind. skip sievert (talk) 23:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


AfD nomination makes sense for this article Technocracy movement

This article should not be merged with Technocracy Incorporated... it should be deleted. It originally was a vehicle for this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Network_of_European_Technocrats Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Network of European Technocrats - This article should go into an Afd.. because the whole concept of it does not make sense. It was originally written by the person that originated the NET article to claim there even was a Technocracy movement connected outside of North America which there is not.. at least not connected as to the same ideas. skip sievert (talk) 02:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

What on Earth are you talking about? We've already agreed that the articles will be merged. This article will be renamed "Technocracy Incorporated" and the current Tech Inc. article will be merged into it and deleted. As was already discussed, it is much better to do it that way then the other, because the editing history and the talk page (and Archives) will be preserved that way. If you can't understand that process then sorry, but I'm not going to bother to take the time to explain it to you again. --Hibernian (talk) 13:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Solution to the controversy of the history section

Ok since there's been little progress so far and Skip is still adding in badly written and unsourced statements, I'm going to present a possible rewrite of part of the history section here: This would replace the current first paragraph of the section.

"According to historian William E. Akin, technocracy has its intellectual origins in the progressive engineers of the late 19th century including the works of Thorsten Veblen, such as "Engineers and the price system", as well as Scientific management (insert reference to Akin's Book here). However, Howard Scott stated that technocracy was not related to the concepts of Scientific management, as Technocrats were not concerned with making Human toil more efficient, but instead wished to eliminate it in favor of Automation (insert reference to Scott's statements in "History and Purpose of Technocracy" here)."

I believe that in this way we can present both conflicting points of view in an acceptable and neutral manner, and have them both sourced. --Hibernian (talk) 14:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


I can not agree to that. The original reference by Akin was used wrongly. Veblen met Scott and learned about what the Technical Alliance was doing. This changed Veblens approach and he wrote Engineers and the Price System in 1921 as a result of meeting Scott and becoming involved in the Technical Alliance so... rather than compromise on something that is not historically true.. better we get the facts right.

There really is no controversy with the edit now Hibernian. It pretty much gets at the actual history without a lot of reediting now except adding more misc. information as needed. Akin was either misquoted by Isenhand or had his facts mixed up. Veblen was influenced dramatically by Howard Scott with the concept of energy accounting. Not the other way around. While things like scientific management Taylorism etc. . were all the rage.. it had virtually nothing to do with the people involved in the Technocracy Technate movement. Ever. The article reflects that idea now.

It is true that those ideas existed and were popular at that time period (scientific management etc.). Perhaps for that reason they are being kept in the article as an antithetical reference point... but it is misconstruing their influence on this subject to suggest that this influenced the Technical Alliance who based their research and findings on Willard Gibbs. It is a basic mistake to credit people that were involved in sociological research as being involved with the basic and core ideas connected with the early aspects relating to this article. Obviously Veblen was interested and contributed to the formulation of some Technocracy concepts. He is listed in the back of the Technocracy Study Course as being the author of Engineers and the Price System. They were extremely picky about their sources in the Study Course. This book of his was written because of his involvement with Scott and the Technical Alliance.

This would be an interesting forerunner and thought provoking aspect to bring into the article "The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor" , 1898, American Journal of Sociology by Veblen. It relate very well to some issues and background brought up here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic) - recently under the instinct of workmanship section added recently, and it actually relates well to the idea of progressive engineers which is probably the point made in the Akin book any way as it could not really be interconnected in any other way to the origins of Technocracy Technate design. skip sievert (talk) 16:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Until a third-party reference can be found to confirm Scott's statement, I believe that Hibernian's proposed version is an adequate compromise. If I remember correctly, Akin's book had a substantial bibliography in it that I used in my initial research in this area. Most of the references were not Technocracy Inc. publications, but were published prior to 1945. Perhaps if copies can be found, they can shed some light on the situation. I'll have to check some of my old records to see if any of them can help here. --Kolzene (talk) 14:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Why would a compromise be suitable when the information is misconstrued. That information was put in the article a long time ago. There is no sense in dancing around inaccurate information that was not properly sourced in the first place. So... unless someone were to copy and paste that part of the book here or paraphrase... or literally copy where a claim for Scientific management or Taylorism was a point of discussion or contention with the original group.... this is a moot point.

Now the article is basically saying that these constructs of scientific management and Taylorism were in the air around the time period. Beyond that there is no connection to Technocracy Technate ideas and to edit the article as there were is not only confusing to any kind of objectivity it is also incorrect. I can find no discussion on the internet as to the contents regarding this issue discussed or critical reviews concerning this book AKIN, WILLIAM E., Technocracy And The American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941.Univ. California, 1977. Hardcover.227 pages. (ISBN: 0520031105) Just because an old unreliable edit was made does not mean we have to try and back it up. All scholarship is pointing toward the connection in question being a misnomer, or not really reflective perhaps of what Akin may have been trying to explain. skip sievert (talk) 15:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, firstly Skip, you are not a historian and neither am I, the both of us don't really know what went on in the 1920s and 30s, and we especially don't know who influenced who, as you seem to state categorically as if you had some special knowledge. All we have to go on are the statements of those involved and the research done by historians, that's what I'm attempting to present here (albeit imperfectly, I'm admit). Exactly how do you know that Scott influenced Veblen and not the other way round? Do you have some source for that? I'm aware that Scott says something like that in his statements, but we now have a historian who's saying the opposite, now I don't know which is correct but that's not the point, our job as Wikipedia editors is to present both opinions. We need to treat this the same way any historically contentious material is treated in any good encyclopaedia, by staying neutral and present the information we have, and if some of that info contradicts, then we state that. It isn't up to us to decide which view of history is true, the best we can do is discuss both. Oh and obviously Skip, I will now be reverting your edit and replacing it with the compromise above, the reasons should be apparent to you now I assume. If you persist in deleting sourced material and replacing it with unsourced biased material, then I think that would be considered obstructive editing.
Kolzene, good to hear that you have the book in question at least, hopefully you can enlighten us as to what exactly it does say. And obviously if you have any other info or sources on this I'm sure we'd all be glad to see that. --Hibernian (talk) 16:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Do you have some source for that? I'm aware that Scott says something like that in his statements, but we now have a historian who's saying the opposite, now I don't know which is correct but that's not the point, our job as Wikipedia editors is to present both opinions.end Hibernia.

Firstly I did not delete the reference. Just expanded the information to make it accurate as possible and made mention that Taylorism and Scientific management were not connected but popular at the time.. so the reference is still there. That all seems obvious.. given all the historical information. Which is correct? How do we know if the information in that edit reflects what Akin said or meant? On faith?

The edit in question is old. Much of the article has changed since it was written. There is no real sense in defending a version of history we do not know to be even represented correctly from the Akin book. The book is not available on open source information. What the Akin book actually says is an open question. How an editor here interprets the information is probably or could be very different than the actual information in the book.

The Veblen stuff and the Scott stuff googles up and is well known. Please present the information word for word from the book that says that scientific management had any thing to do with the Technocratic movement. My edit makes it clear that it was a popular conception at the time. I have referenced another article to you on this history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . That is based on solid scholarship. The section on Engineers and instinct.

Is there an historian that is saying just the opposite of that ?... as you ask. Probably not. At least why put an interpretation and not cite the example? What are you referencing beyond the name and title of a book that someone says implies something ? Lets get the excerpt directly here first as suggested. As it was before was more accurate in regard to time .. place.. and history.. as far as is presently known.

You have also put back Proto-Technocratic into the article. Flag-Steward carefully explained why that is not a good idea. Also it is a phrase that a non notable site in Sweden uses to spam information. So you are going against a consensus by re adding that neologism word. skip sievert (talk) 02:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok I've just had to revert it again, because Skip has continued to add in his opinions and now even attempting to distort the meaning of the sentence. What he added has no basis outside of his head, and is as usual badly written and biased. I also cannot understand why he is persisting in deleting "proto-technocratic" from the article, even after it has been explained to him that it has nothing to do with NET, as he still seems to be claiming. BTW there was no consensus on it, several editors have expressed that it should stay and Skip says it should be deleted, the only reason he has ever come up with for this position, is that it was "invented" by NET, which is utter baloney. It was written simply as a descriptive term for this article and there are good reasons for that which I've explained previously. If he wants it removed I suggest he provide some proof for his claims or that his reason is even legitimate (which he hasn't done so far), otherwise he'd better leave it alone or he will be deliberately distrusting the article. --Hibernian (talk) 16:49, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

made up descriptive words such as proto-technocratic

Quote from Flagsteward several sections above on this discussion page... If Scott or someone used the phrase "proto-technate" in a particular context that can be sourced in a document like the TSC, then you can use it in the article indicating the context in which he meant it. Otherwise you should avoid it altogether, and talk about "the early stages of a technate" or whatever, using English makes it clear that you're not using a word with a specific meaning. On the other hand opinions like "the most notable" can only be established by third party sources, something like the Akin book, or should be removed altogether.. If you can't find a reliable third party source to back up your personal opinion, just accept that you are either mistaken or at least your view is not that of the mainstream that Wikipedia seeks to represent. ;-/ Some more guidelines that would be useful for people to read are WP:PEACOCK and WP:WEASEL - some quotes : end quote Flagsteward.

I hope this puts proto-technocratic to rest. A consensus has been reached that this term should not be in the article. Also as currently written the article is more objective and represents the information generally better. It can still be improved though. skip sievert (talk) 21:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Eh no Skip, this neither puts the issue to rest, nor creates a consensus. Perhaps you can't read properly or something, but in this quote you've provided Flagsteward never talked about "proto-technocratic" he was talking about "proto-technate", most likely because you've attempted to conflagrate the two to confuse newcomers. Note also that Flagsteward talks specifically about not putting in personal opinions, such as you have done here non-stop. For instance, you still have the phrase "One of many notable members" in "your version" of the Technocracy Incorporated page. It's been removed from this page, why haven't you removed it from there? I haven't bothered to touch that page since it's going to be merged, so it's just left with the crap you put in.
Now as for your specific edit here [5], let me just tell you what's wrong with it. First of all you changed the sentence so that it reads differently, you're actually trying to change what Akin said, that's totally unacceptable, that's tantamount to fraud. You've added in a moronic line saying that Tech Inc. was formed on an energy accounting system instead of money, this is baloney, energy accounting was the group's goal, it wasn't how they operated the organization. Tech inc. is and was a normal Non-profit organization operating within the price system. The group's goals, including energy accounting, are discussed in detail later in the article, that's a totally superfluous sentence. And lastly, you've added back a link to "History and Purpose of Technocracy" in the "external links" area, even after I told you it is already linked about 4 lines down from there in the "References" section (check here [6], reference number 3). For these reasons, this edit is biased, badly written, repetitive and generally adds nothing to the article, I'm therefore going to remove it, and I don't want to see it again. --Hibernian (talk) 17:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Calm down. I am only interested in improving the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OWN Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. I have addressed these issues on the talk page. skip sievert (talk) 23:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not even a response, and I see you've just put back your version with no justification. Your bizarre editing just demonstrates that even after a year of this, you still know next to nothing about how to write a wikipedia article. What you write is always biased, always opinionated, always one-sided, always repetitive and quite often simply wrong. You seem to have no concept of how to write from a NPOV and indeed wilfully push your own POV. You've added in the same basic mistake for the 3rd or 4th time now even after me reputedly telling you that what you've added goes against any number of rules and guidelines (not to mention common sense). You have demonstrated again and again that you can't edit constructively and that you deliberately edit Tendentiously and Disruptively. You really are Unbelievable. I'll be reverting it now, since the bad edits haven’t changed, the reasons for getting rid of them haven’t either. --Hibernian (talk) 16:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well you are entitled to your opinion. I think you are wrong. You are the only one here that is reversing the current edits. Proto-Technocratic is a neologism. You made up the word in this connection... as has been discussed...If Scott or someone used the phrase "proto-technate" in a particular context that can be sourced in a document like the TSC, then you can use it in the article indicating the context in which he meant it. Otherwise you should avoid it altogether, and talk about "the early stages of a technate" or whatever, using English makes it clear that you're not using a word with a specific meaning.

Some real improvement could be made in this article with information like this now..

The new section here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic)....(The technocratic instinct among engineers and its outcomes).. goes a long way in explaining in very concise language the dynamic of this early period we are now dealing with reediting this article with sources/citations/references. This information would integrate the information mentioned in the beginning of the article very well.. it is well referenced and cited and accurate as to the flow of events and the players involved... Taylorism.. Scientific management..Early groups and their relationship to the term Technocracy etc.

From the article.. Technocracy is one solution to a problem faced by engineers in the early twentieth century. Following Samuel Haber[1] Donald Stabile argues that engineers were faced with a conflict between physical efficency and cost efficiency in the new corporate capitalist enterprises of the late nineteenth century USA.

Profit-conscious, nontechnical managers of the firm where the engineers work, because of their perceptions of market demand, often impose limits on the projects the engineer desires to undertake; workers do not perform according to the specifications of the engineer's plans; and the prices of all inputs vary with market forces thereby upsetting the engineer's careful calculations. As a result, the engineer loses control over his own little world and must continually revise his plans. To keep his little world secure, the engineer is forced to extend his control over these outside variables and transform them into constant factors.[2]

Engineers heatedly discussed these issues in US engineering journals and proceedings. Three ideological outcomes were produced. Firstly, Taylorism which integrates price structures into engineering concerns, thus producing scientific management where the capitalist manager and engineer divide control over the production process and working class between themselves. Secondly, building on Taylorism the Soviet Union implemented socialist-Taylorism where economic planning, a political bureaucracy and a technical elite divided control over the economy through institutions like the GOELRO plan or five year plans. While political concerns influenced Soviet planning, and engineers were politically persecuted; the political bureaucracy designed plans so as to achieve technical outcomes, and used production price accounting as a technical, rather than economic measure. Finally, in the United States a view that technical concerns should take precedence developed among engineers such as William Howard Smyth based on the early conception of Industrial democracy which was limited merely to the technical government of firms. This school of thought amongst engineers eventually produced social institutions arguing for purely technical government of society in the 1930s. end from article

Now that is good stuff and very applicable as it gets at the core of trying to express the precedent historical background about a Technocracy movement. It is excellent scholarship. skip sievert (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You guys should just stop

I mean, really, there are some smart people here who do good work for the organization. If I were you, I'd stop wasting 'ink' on frivolous internet arguments and make more meaningful contributions. Write more articles to papers, make more handouts, organize more gatherings. Too much of your energy is being wasted here. This has gone on now for over a year. It's depressing. Let the article turn into whatever, you always have the official link at the top of the Google searches. 77siddhartha (talk) 07:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


A link to look at from a Russian critic

Not sure I follow your train of thought here Sid.. but welcome back. Actually the article is coming along pretty well despite the fact that it could be improved still with more scholarship/references/good links etc. Here is a link that I was thinking could be integrated in here possibly under the criticism section. A Russian essayist. Feel free to do so if you think its worth it http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/batalov/AU2-5.html Ralph Dumain: "The Autodidact Project": Eduard Batalov: “The American Utopia”: II.5: The Technocratic Utopia

I do not really agree with all of it but it has some interesting points in it. Also as said that section on Instinct and Engineers here is really excellent and could be brought in as a separate section in this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic)

I never was interested in any thing other than accurate info... and do not consider things from any other view point. There is some argument for keeping this article as a stand alone... and not merging it with the TechInc article. It could be just the historical antecedents before and after and explore the ground of the time period ... while the other is purely those ideas from their point of view and their critics point of view to an extent. skip sievert (talk) 01:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Another possible link for criticism section?

Here is another link that may be interesting to fit into the criticism section... it concerns variants on the energy theory of value (particularly net energy analysis), this paper was funded at least partially by the Dept. of Energy of the United States.. and could be viewed as biased with a political slant for that reason.

This link is an historical overview and critique from this authors point of view on Technocracy and whether using the mechanism of energy... which is the basis of Technocracy.. is really the best method... he says not. http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/2023/1/SWP-1353-09057784.pdf Critique of Technocracy.SWP-1353-09057784.pdf (application/pdf Object) skip sievert (talk) 16:34, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Gibbs citation

Added a linked citation and reference to Willard Gibbs material. Stream lined article, shortening some non cited material. Made some syntax and sentence structure more readable.skip sievert (talk) 15:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Technocracy movement and Technocracy Incorporated articles

At this point it makes sense not to merge the two articles. Each article is playing a different role. The TechInc article talks directly about the focus of that organization and relates directly to the different people involved in the history of it.

The Technocracy movement article gets into the precedent cultural/scientific culture from the 19th century and the early 20th century and gets into how all those things combined to produce what we know as the Technocracy movement in the 1918 to 1934 period that is still around.

One is dealing directly with that group information (TechInc) and the other dealing with the movement of social scientists and engineers and others that went through a period of attempting to think up alternative constructs for society (TechMovement).

The period from the late 19th cent. and the inception of Technocracy Incorporated (TechInc.) along with the other attempts by various people to start related social movements (TechMovement) is now pretty well covered in depth and cited and referenced in the Technocracy movement article... so now it makes a good stand alone article with a different perspective than the Technocracy Incorporated article because it gets into the antecedents and that is a broad ... and long topic. No doubt it can still be improved with more citations and references. skip sievert (talk) 14:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no purpose other than publicity in duplicating this article using to different names.--tequendamia (talk) 00:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you could be wrong in that in regard to TechInc anyway... another idea is to just put it up (TechMove) for a Afd... which was my suggestion originally since no one seems really interested in combining the two.

One is a group (TechInc) that came from a series of other groups. It was a large diverse group of elements that went into what became Technocracy Incorporated. This is a concern of history not publicity. This movement was large and had a huge impact. We might be short shifting it by not keeping it in to two parts. Originally it was split for that purpose, although originally it also was split as a vehicle for another modern group... but that purpose is no longer the case here.

Does it make particular sense to put it back together while the different issues can be gotten at separately like this now in two articles? Really the early history of the (TechMove) article is done very well now. This issue was not acted on probably for that reason (publicity). The antecedents concerning the group played out over decades. I suggested long ago that this article could be Afd'd. No one has really attempted seriously to combine the two... It would make for a large history perhaps. Are you seriously interested in combining the two? Right now this article covers the early period of sociology and engineers very well and other elements very well. Another idea might be to make this article just about the time period leading up to the advent of TechInc? What do you think? In a lot of ways you are absolutely right that way to much information is duplicated here. Could it be pared down considerably to only a few sections? Let me do some of that and perhaps you could also for starters. skip sievert (talk) 01:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

expanded the intro

Intro was very short before... added some basic information as to history and present and some common terms connected. skip sievert (talk) 00:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite from the history angle of movement

I have tried to get away from the focus from TechInc connected stuff from this article ... but this article has to be connected to them obviously to make sense. Ultimately that is the part of the movement that has come down to the present. Most of the main TechInc elements though are now gone in the article and the focus is on what happened in the history leading up to ... and the groups involved in leading up to, the movement. The why's and wherefor's. I have put multiple references and citations and so forth on. Not really sure but as an exercise in the background history of the connected groups... this may work pretty well now. Perhaps this article could use another title. Technocracy history? skip sievert (talk) 03:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Added another linked citation reference

Regarding the Fezer article and energy accounting http://http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificate] An article on Energy Accounting. skip sievert (talk) 15:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Also added linked reference to Wilton Ivie and his essay on urbanates. skip sievert (talk) 01:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Added a segment on Frederick Soddy winner of the Noble prize for chemistry in 1921, who was also interested in the Technocracy movement in the U.S., which is evidenced by his publication Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (George Allen & Unwin 1926), which is used as a reference in the Technocracy Study Course. Soddy himself, in a newsreel interview taken in his office and laboratory, presented in the early 30's a very nice admission and commendation for the development of Technocracy in the United States. His book is used very prominently in the Technocracy Study course to explain the mechanics of money skip sievert (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Merger of Technocratic views of the Price system here

As the Technocratic views of the Price system was a very short article that could be easily incorporated as a paragraph here without being accorded undue weight, I have merged it with the Criticism of the Price system method section here. If the section develops significantly, it can be re-split as a content fork later. Skomorokh 05:17, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Good idea Skomorokh. It makes sense to consolidate the two here. The information fits nicely into the area you put it in. It might make sense to do the same thing with this article which also seems orphaned. Maybe you could pick through it and transfer some info here also and merge it here? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_%28Technocracy%29 Abundance (Technocracy) skip sievert (talk) 15:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

That article is a little too long to copy in here; it would need to be consolidated and as I am unfamiliar with the topic I am not the editor to do it. I have put the merge proposal tags up, so if no-one objects, you can go ahead and merge it yourself soon. Skomorokh 16:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge to Technocracy Incorporated

The current articles deals with the same group. The current lead of this article is uncorrect, as it does not refers to the Technocracy Movement, but to Technocracy (bureaucracy), and furthermore gives a definition of it which is the one given by Technocracy Inc. This brings confusion. Tazmaniacs (talk) 18:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a bad idea now for a lot of reasons. Number one, the information and focus in both articles is different, and gets into different aspects, of this rather big topic. In this article the pre-history of the Technocracy movement is cited to a big degree (not in the other as much) and its historical precedence... the other article takes it for granted. The other article presents material from the viewpoint (cited) of TechInc. -- This one does not. There were multiple organizations and people, in the 1930's that presented ideas about these concepts connected also. This idea of combining was kicked around a while ago here and pretty much rejected later... because the articles present different focus and need separate ways to express that. The current article here is connected to Technocracy bureaucracy because the two by nature are connected in the most basic ways as to history and thought. It is not confusing reading both articles because the information overlaps as to ideas and history. For those reasons I am removing the merge tag. skip sievert (talk) 18:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
This means it needs you 21 minutes to take a decision which should be taken by the Wikipedia community. I applaud this technocratic way of proceeding! Seriously, "technocracy movement" is confusing, and you seem to have a very partial view of what "Technocracy" means. I don't think Henri de Man, X-Crise or other similar groups thought that the big issue was dealing with a "energy-based model" and not a "prices model". Tazmaniacs (talk) 18:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be in the wrong topic or wrong area. This article is about a specific thing. This idea was kicked around and rejected before for lack of interest and as said the article morphed into a separate but connected area. skip sievert (talk) 19:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If there is no organisation officially known as "Technocracy Movement", how am I supposed to know that you will deal here with the "Technocracy Movement" as understood by Technocracy Incorporated, and not with general movements related to technocracy, i.e. including such things as planisme, X-Crise, etc. etc., all movements which questionned parliamentarism and liberal democracy, as well as liberal economism, in exchange of technocracy? Tazmaniacs (talk) 20:36, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Article focus

There is only one group that went so far as to make a scientific plan and organize a large group of people... publish a book that is still in the library of Congress, which is read and considered the basis of the movement today, and that has existed since 1918 in a precursor way to itself with the people involved (Scientists, Engineers, and other interested parties)... and goes back even further to the physiocrats and early thermodynamicists ... and that is the one discussed here. It was a social movement with 100's of thousands of people aware of it. It is still around and active. I think you are editing tendentiously ... for what ever reason. Have you ever heard of the peace movement? or any other movement?... generally they relate to certain subjects... this one is Technocracy movement. This movement started officially in 1934... and has been around since. It is based on the Technocracy Study Course. There are some minor side branches... which are already mentioned in the article... by links and connections. Please take the time to read the article and associated material before tearing into it. There is a dictionary definition of what Technocracy is in the top of the article. Please read that also.

Also... this is the reason for your edit you gave...rv - than it should be said in the lead that we are talking about sgth specific, not technocratic movements in general).. so if that is what you think why not just change the language to reflect that instead of going on a revert mission? Or discuss that idea on this talk page? You will note the title of the article is Technocracy movement.. not Technocracy movements. I would suggest that the article body explains the history and background and influences .. and major players. In other words it is pretty apparent what the article is about given the long and complex and articulate way the history of this movement is explained in the article. Also this suggestion you make... all movements which questionned parliamentarism and liberal democracy, as well as liberal economism, in exchange of technocracy? I really am not sure what you are talking about... I suggest you look at the section.. Technocracy and engineering as this area is already addressed as it is addressed through out the article. In other words.. this is not a political system or political movement but it is concerned with economics ie. Energy Accounting. skip sievert (talk) 23:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


If it is not a political movement, what is it? It's concerned about economics, just as most political movements. Concerning your assertion that "There is only one group that went so far as to make a scientific plan and organize a large group of people... publish a book that is still in the library of Congress", this is only proof of your ignorance of, like I've already pointed out, planisme, X-Crise, Redressement Français, not to say most groups related to positivism and Auguste Comte's philosophy. The title of this article really should be specified. When I open up a dictionnary concerning Technocracy, I do not expect to read something on "Energy" and "Prices". PS: I read that "Energy Accounting is the hypothetical system of distribution, proposed by Technocracy Incorporated". So, shouldn't this entry be titled Technocratic Movement (Technocracy Incorporated)? Right now it's confusing with ordinary acceptions of the word technocracy and of groups that have endorsed this ideology. Tazmaniacs (talk) 00:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Again you might read the actual information and I think that might answer your questions as to what it is or is not... maybe you might think about reading this http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/History%20&%20Purpose-r.htm History and Purpose of Technocracy That could possibly be a good reference and educational reference point for you. Ok? As far as proof of my ignorance, as you say... please lay off the personal attacks. I partly organized and laid out the page you are quoting from, the other article Technocracy (bureaucratic)... so it can safely be said, I am aware of its contents which I helped organized and write... and also linked that page originally to the article page here. Understand? It is really not needed to make personal attacks. If you desire to improve the article fine.. but tendentious editing gets old fast. skip sievert (talk) 00:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Expanded the intro

Intro was very short before... added some basic information as to history and present, and some common terms connected. skip sievert (talk) 00:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Link

Added what seems to be a very interesting historical research on the Technocracy movement... lots of interesting historical and anecdotal material in it. Added it in external links http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/5072/1/b13876442.pdf * The Technocrats 1919-1967: A Case Study Of Conflict In A Social Movement, David Adair]

Further language translations in Wikipedia

I know that this is limited by actual working knowledge of posters on Wikipedia, but is there any chance we can get this article into more languages, preferably languages not derived from Latin such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, etc? There are several Asian and Russian immigrants to North America who may wish to view this information for a better understanding of the movement, since there is no translations of the information provided by any part of the movement itself. Maldaen (talk) 17:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This may be of some help. http://babelfish.altavista.com/ it is not perfect, but could help with some basic idea translations. If the web-page is entered it will also translate all the links into that language desired... it can then also be bookmarked and gone back to. skip sievert (talk) 18:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Maybe but from my experience of translation between english and east asian languages by automatic translation, other than for direct translation of specific words, is very unreliable and usually ends up meaning something rather different from what is in the original, and with previous arguments over wording this doesn't seem like a good idea Firebladed (talk) 10:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I agree. I just meant that for people with no other easy access to be able to accurately translate something... this could give a general idea. I use it for that. Then I have a reference point sometimes to further info or ideas. It sort of fits into the better than nothing category. skip sievert (talk) 16:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:babel could translate this article into the main wikilanguages if it's bettered to the level of a Wikipedia:Featured article. So, a first good step would be to start to work it out with this purpose in mind.--tequendamia (talk) 02:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
PS: Actually, the first step is to remove the label of controversial topic articles. How has this topic become controversial if it is hardly known?--tequendamia (talk) 02:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Good point... I removed the Controversial topic articles sticker. Good suggestion Tequendamia. skip sievert (talk) 03:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Tequendamia I left a message on your talk page about removing the section on Thermodynamics... and why that is not a good idea. The very basis of these ideas are based on thermodynamics... http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/Scott%27s%20Thermodynamics-r.htm - Please do not make major changes without looking at this information very carefully. Thanks. skip sievert (talk) 19:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
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