People's Cabinet Sandbox #1 (Final)

Based on Timothy Snyder's Thinking About...

2/11/25 3:00 p.m. pacific. FINAL STATEMENT ON PROJECT

This will likely be the final update regarding the “project” of learning about and experimenting with the Substack platform to understand its potential usefulness as a public-facing communication platform. It is clear to me it could work for a “shadow cabinet”, or any other committee or group for that matter.

When I first joined Substack it was to follow Prof Snyder. When his two posts about “shadow cabinets” came out I barely understood how this platform worked. But my intuition lead me to imagine how a diverse cabinet might utilize it. At a certain point I committed myself to set up this “sandbox” and get serious about developing the idea. Since that time, I have learned any committee with multiple communicating members could utilize the Substack system in any number of configurations which suit the body to which it is associated. It can even be transferred to a private server which would likely be a requirement of an official, or otherwise serious “shadow cabinet”.

At this point I see no reason to imagine any setup further. It is safe to say any configuration a “shadow cabinet” determines will serve their purposes can be configured and put to use from the outset. It is pretty simple, it was ignorant me that didn’t understand that. Additionally, the blitzkrieg of the Musk-Trump admin has made me pause these last few weeks.

I would be more than happy to meet with anyone exploring the setup for a shadow cabinet which is in accordance with Dr. Snyder’s examples I have reiterated in this post:

Thanks to everyone for their support, consideration, and input!

I will now venture along with my independent ideas and writing, and detach from my original Substack effort of first longer comments and derivatives on Snyder’s work which then led me to the “shadow cabinet” Substack use project.

Over and out. Doug

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

1/29/25 11:30 a.m. pacific.

Okay, so this thing we are up against is developing like the Blitzkrieg. I wonder where the Mump Regime got the idea for something like that?

I’m getting my mind back to focusing on the prototyping/proof-of-principle build so that when the opportunity arises for an elevator-pitch there is something concrete to deliver.

Anyone who is well-versed in configuring Substack would be a great help with this. We could call it; “various configurations prototypes development”. Any conversation and second opinion/second set of eyes would be good. Ongoing or one-time. We just need to get infrastructure ready to help promote the cabinet formation in the first place and be ready when, and if, it actually does take form.

The obvious trouble with finding people to talk and work with is most everyone is concentrating on their own busy life and isn’t looking for some semi-complicated project to add to the load. This is innovation work, although not terribly complex. Innovation can be challenging in all kinds of ways though. I should know, I’ve had my failures and will have more. On the other hand, what is the other option? Quit? No. Slow down? That might be the right thing. Push hard? I’ll let others answer that one.

(P.S. I’ve been calling it a “sandbox” but that might change soon.)

******************************************************************************************************

1/27/25 3:00 p.m. pacific. Separate from this sandbox work, I just posted about the makeup of the cabinet.

In this part of the “cabinet shop” there is a lot of work to do defining and describing ways to configure the platform for the imagined shadow cabinet. But it’s doable, and that’s the main point. When I started this I had no idea if it could work or not, now I’m convinced it can. But it depends on what the “end user” will want and need and since there is no “end user” yet, it makes sense to allow outside developments instead of trying to imagine all the possible scenarios and working hard to fill the needs of those.

So I’m not going to start crafting possible mockups as a priority. Let’s see what begins to come together in the real world and then reach out to that forming body and see if any of this might be useful. Over and out for now. Doug

1/22/25 9:45 p.m. Wow! Things are heading south for the Mump Regime so quickly that it seems the right thing to do here is pause. It seems possible to me the real goal unfolding since election day until today is to blow the USA apart politically from the inside out, and to do it ASAP. I’m back to thinking much underlying this is Putin-controlled. It once again seems plausible Trump is compromised. How else could the Pardon thing have morphed so drastically in the eleventh hour to a blanket pardon for all? I don’t know anyone, including me, who thought this was a possibility. If that’s just Trump being a solitary very stable genius, okay, but I’m thinking we need to consider there could be a far more sinister and planned force behind this.

If so, that means a slow, deliberate “shadow cabinet” build could easily become obsolete before it’s fully formed. And obviously this would also mean it would be futile effort and only serve as another distraction, which is obviously what the tyrannical destroyers want. So pause it is. The right thing to do right now.

When the smoke clears on the Pardons, the Hegseth vote, the Right Rev. Budde’s powerful and courageous plea for Mercy, and who knows what comes next in this fast-paced government failure effort, I’ll pick back up and keep this moving. Or not depending on if this quick fall continues to build momentum. It sure could it seems now.

*****************************************************************************************************

This is a quick update because I’ve posted links on Snyder’s “On Tyranny” post of today, 1/20/25.

In the past two or three days there has been some real progress conceptually in how this system ought to be defined and prototyped. The below is worth reading for certain if you are interested, and also the stuff on the “holding” post. But please understand this thing is developing and I don’t want to lose anyone because i can’t keep up. Also, there is no “bleeding” to stop now. We are in for a long slow difficult effort in this country and this is not an emergency here, this cabinet thing.

So far, two other people, Ariane Goodwin and Jerry Spiegler, have engaged meaningfully on this effort. Looking forward to others jumping in.

More coming soon.

Thanks, Doug

***************************************************************************************************

NOTE: THIS IS THE PREVIOUS POSTING PRIOR TO INAGUATION DAY

This is the first AMENDED post in the “sandbox” of ideas in this publication. Thanks to Ariane Goodwin for the nudge about brevity.

The goal is to build, within this platform, a robust and comprehensive input/output communication and library device tailored to transmit the work product of the proposed cabinet.

Anyone who has questions they’d like to ask should feel free to message me, or use the comments to do that if they want.

About the name: The name is insignificant to this structure development project. This publication is only about setting up a working structure to be the portal for incoming and outgoing public information for the shadow cabinet. The goal is to build a system tailored to the cabinet’s internal actions and interactions and the work product created, while being a public democracy-supporting thing.

The idea is to create mockups which might work well. The important thing is to get started immediately developing a platform for the cabinet to work with. What is created here could morph into an inhouse platform based on the same basic technology.

We should think in terms of a closed system of politicians using this with we the citizens and journalists following and commenting if we choose to. It is not a democratic social media venue where everyone has a say equal to everyone else. The cabinet members have to feel unencumbered to do their work.

This project is more a matter of servant leadership to create a workable system that empowers the cabinet to efficiently work in their own servant leadership roles. We want to create a platform to hand off for others to use and modify as they learn more.

If we build something compelling that obviously could be useful it will increase the likelihood a solid group of potential cabinet members will say yes to the invitation to join the cabinet. Qualified potential cabinet members are surely busy on other important things so something user-friendly needs to be presented.

In practical terms working on this here, there could be ten or twenty sandboxes (posts) as it evolves, each with a specific cabinet position for example. These would all be on the same Substack publication. It’s also possible that splitting this thing into a structure which is a group of several publications will be a better way to go. These two fundamental structural differences should be considered carefully.

The single-publication version is the layout which is under experiment now. Much of what is figured out in this phase will be useful if a more complex and decentralized “multi-publication” type version turns out to be a better development.

The editor(s) will be able to add to, or create new, associated posts with the same cabinet seat header but with a number or other designation so the most current can be compared to the previous, etc. e.g. Transportation 1, Transportation 2, Transportation 3. Links to each separate item is another tool. Imagining the “editor” as a chairman’s chief-of-staff might be a good way to keep on track to the goal.

There are many questions about what the best possible structure might be so this is all just to get started in the experiments and to inspire ideas. Feel free to criticize especially the conceptual aspects and the lack of brevity which an amateur like me is infamous for. I’m okay about this because it’s so important to end up with a good product. I feel like we are in such deep trouble and major violence and unfreedom is coming if we don’t reverse the direction we are on. My skin is getting thicker by the day. So just go for it I say! Help figure this out.

Here are some ideas to follow up.

1. Figuring out how to make it easy for someone the find their way in and out of a particular publication. Probably just the name of the cabinet position, but it’s possible other paths might be possible? Links from a master post “table of contents” type post?

2. Once a reader is in the desired cabinet position post, how would direct messaging work best for them and the cabinet admin? This could get out-of-hand real easy so it needs thought and testing. Someone out there right now knows the best way to go, but I don’t. I’m asking.

3. If the direct messages were sent through different posts, how might they be tracked to match with the corresponding post? Conversely can the messages be designated according to their posts but as part of a single publication? Same issue, I’m new in Substack so don’t know all the ins and outs. Help!

4. Will regular comments on the post be easy to copy/past into some holding file to use in further content development in a future post? Response to a direct message, can these also be copy/pasted to match up with later use? I now think the answer is yes. That was some of the stuff I did day one.

5. How about “Troll Control”, what might be useful there? Remembering this is a tool for the cabinet, not a free-speech encouraging venue. Is there a way to counter comments to the cabinet members, and the public to read, which detract from the focus of the cabinet’s goals? A flagging system is what is needed. But how?

6. Can a schematic drawing of different layouts be helpful? Seems like it. Anyone good with that stuff? I’ve done some, but it’s been awhile and it’s not a priority to me at this point. Someone else might really find it helpful earlier though.

7. Other ideas? Here is a separate post to hold miscellaneous things for further rendering and use;

   People's Cabinet Sandbox Holding Place

   Thanks for reading, pondering, and commenting, Doug