Mission Statement

Early on I mentioned that I thought the need for policy analysis was so urgent that it start immediately while think tank may wait longer. See point 2 of my comment on the initial announcement at:

https://discuss.pirateint.org/t/exploritory-group-to-establish-a-support-organisation-for-ppis-in-iceland/119

I will be happy to join discussions of both energy policy and climate policy and will join immediately if Rasmus wishes to start one now (in a more publicly accessible forum like above site).

But it would clearly be a diversion to debate those issues here in this thread so unless it is seriously proposed to include that stuff in a mission statement I will refrain from explaining why I strongly disagree with EVERYTHING Rasmus just said about energy policy.

(But I cannot restrain myself from parenthetically remarking that anyone who believes Greenie claims that currently foreseeable battery technology will be relevant to grid power simply needs to study energy issues before making policy on them).

I wasn't part of the process in the earlier discussions :) Although I agree with all of those points you mentioned there,

About energy policy, it's not my intention to discuss it but I used it as an example of an important futures topic area. And I think its important that such topic areas are mentioned as areas of interest in a mission statement.

Btw my statement about energy-systems wasn't about energy policy but a look at the subject from a futures research perspective. I happen to run a company that does futures research and strategy development for situations of disruptive change. And I hope I was clear that I wasn't talking about grid electricity when I said everything will have a battery. I was however talking about grid electricity when I stated that electricity will be intermittent and extremely volatile in price. Batteries will be the consumer level way to deal with this. Grid owner might as well just shoot themselves before the storm hits.

A lot of really good points guys. Reading through it leads me to think we need two mission statements.
1. for the fund raising campaign
2. for the setting up phase
The first one should be short and emphasizing what we see Sunstone doing an its appeal to Pirates and beyond. Stress the wide range of people who would benefit from it

The second would be more elaborate and would be to attract talent fo run it and staff the advisory board - that should have a good number of non pirates

I wrote up a draft of a fundraising mission statement - WDYT?

Sunstone is a project to set up an international think tank that will primarily seek to apply Pirate Party principles to international and national policy areas. How do transparency, civil and digital rights and participatory democracy, for example, fit into foreign affairs, economic and social welfare policies. Each country is different and while no solution will fit all cases, generic policy development will enable country specific solutions to be created more easily. It should also have a fellowship programme, to provide funding to scholars and academics to conduct research on specific topics.

It is not only Pirate Parties that are interested in implementing Pirate based policies. Therefore Sunstone will be open to collaboration with other organisations and parties and the output is intended to be licensed under Creative Commons making it available to all.

Who will benefit from the work Sunstone will be doing?

• Whistle-blowers - protection for whistle blowers is essential where governments and public agencies are not transparent.
• Content creators – the copyright system is in need of reform as the current system benefits the corporations at the expense of ordinary artists and creators.
• Digital users – surveillance and the wholesale harvesting by intelligence agencies and
• Direct Democracy supporters – most Pirate Parties support various forms of increased participation of citizens in the democratic process.
• UBI supporters – poverty is the enemy of a free democratic process.
• Educators – an educated populace is essential to open political discourse.
• Privacy proponents – mass surveillance is not conducive to free discussion
• Freedom of information advocates – the people must be able to access information to be able to make free and informed decisions

Once Sunstone is operational it will have a global remit but initially it will be concentrating on assisting the Pirate Party of Iceland. The small party needs to formulate polices in anticipation of it playing a much larger role in the government that will follow the 2017 elections. If elections were held now then polls indicate it would be the Pirate Party of Iceland would be the biggest in the Athingi – the Icelandic parliament.

1. Too long.

2. Too verbose (separate problem - sub-editing always needed and easily done in later drafts, too hard for authors to do themselves).

3. Explicit mention of pirate "parties" and of Pirate Party of Iceland may exacerbate potential political and legal problems with outsiders influencing Icelandic politics. (I don't know - only Icelanders could know).

4. As I feared, natural tendency of global pirates drafting is too much emphasis on what is already understood by them which means too little on what must be learned about "practical government"

5. NB this cannot be justified on basis that donations more likely for what people already understand. Even if true, we have to be transparent about what funds are actually needed for. Also actually also not true - donations less likely for more of the same. Appeal is for something important and new.

6. Although this is less absurd than advocating personal batteries that only reinforces my believe that draft is best done by Icelanders first. Not a personal difficulty but inherently necessary due to really qualitatively different experience and understanding there.

Off the cuff unedited attempt:

"Emerging from the global pirate movement, advocates of transparency and participatory democracy have recently become the largest political party in Iceland and may lead or participate in the next government. Funds are needed for a think tank, based in Iceland, but mobilizing transparent global participation in research and discussion, for global pirates to study policies for "practical government". Many new topics, which pirates may disagree about, including practical economic, industrial, healthcare, welfare and agriculture policies for pirates in government."

All good points.

1&2 Certainly too long but it will be different in various media - Indegogo, web page, social media etc. each will need to be adaptions

3 The legal position has been cleared by Herbert Snorrason. As to the possibility of political ramifications that would be unlikely in the current circumstances. If everything was done by them it could also be seen as problematic. Perhaps @evathuridardottir could comment.
The explicit mentioning of PPIS is one of the greatest selling points we have. Both for Pirates and non Pirates.

3(b) This is the second reason for the think tank to develop policy in areas where we are weak or have none

4 We cannot be totally transparent about everything that Sunstone will do as that will be decided the future board members. Structure and canvassing people is the next step.

1&2) Mission statement for fundraising should provide a focus that helps avoid "adaptations" from drifting too far apart. Desirable that it be short enough to repeat in most adaptations.

3a.1) Yes, views of Eva, Herbert and any other icelanders available very important. BTW I did not read Herbert's comments on your initial proposal as "clearing" anything legally (requires fully briefed lawyers) and far from suggesting political problems "unlikely" I read him as saying the opposite.

3a.2) Yes popularity of Iceland Pirate Party is biggest reason to donate. There may be a way to make that more explicit than I did without problems. But putting it at the front is more emphasis than spelling out the name at the end.

3b). (Thanks for fixing my duplicate numbering of 3). I don't understand your reference to "second reason". My understanding is that "to develop policy in areas where we are weak or have none" is THE reason. If you have a different "first" reason, please spell it out briefly. (If it was to "channel funds to help them get elected" that of course could not be spelled out but neither should it be attempted).

1. Generic statements about not being able to always act transparently are opaque. Mission statement for funding must clearly and accurately state what the funding is for. It is natural for there to be disagreement about that. But such disagreements need to be discussed and resolved so that potential donors are clear. I certainly won't donate to the mission of "future board members". Who would?

Anyone else want to try their hand please go ahead and we can pick the best out of them

I think Andrews version is rather good. But it certainly would be interesting to see several more efforts. It will move the processes forward much faster than a theoretical discussion about principles for who, what and why.