design philosophy – mil's page

definition, design philosophy, rationale

Terms of negotiation between myself, Nio Kvinnor’s sponsors, and the UK

“This is where Nio Kvinnor’s sponsors and myself and the UK can begin to negotiate from, where goodwill may exist on all sides.”

Mil Williams, 14th May 2025,

Chester UK

What today’s post is about: on negotiating a JV between the proposed Stockholm-based IKEA-style tech company Nio Kvinnor and the UK government and its various agencies

I was in Stockholm in April. Although whilst in Dublin in 2016 on Bloomsday I met someone who was able to change my view of myself, in Stockholm last month I met someone capable of changing others’ views of me.

I think part of that meeting was tasking me to attempt to achieve what follows: not as a condition for continuing in Scandinavia, but as a real positive, were I able to bring it to the table on entry.

Eliza’s doctrine, back in the early 2000s, said, from when she started in the role, that I had to be neutralised whatever it took.

The doctrine in question has continued to this day: she still influences what can and what cannot be actioned in the UK, if it ran the risk of reneging on her legacy and decisions.

This, then, is what I propose.

On proposing what follows, this is, first, what I lose in today’s ideation, if we deliver a JV as described above.

Eliza & Co will never apologise for the errors they knowingly committed re my person and reputation. They will, therefore, never compensate my ex- and my children for what happened.

I give up my children irrevocably as a result, because without that recognition and apology my children will never believe my side of the story.

The above background needs to be in this text because I must explain sharply and clearly why I write the next section as I do.

In exchange for not having to apologise or compensate anyone, the British must give up all input to any projects we develop in what we might call a distribution JV for them. They will have full, licensed access to anything not ringfenced to other JVs, but no input beyond bringing a problem to the JV for prioritisation in the wider Nio Kvinnor universe, and possible development in the JV we will share only between Nio Kvinnor and the British themselves.

If, on the other hand, the British want a fuller set of JV rights, they need to directly contact my ex- and children, explain and apologise for what happened, and compensate them for my and their lost earnings over the decades since 2002. The calculation would be between the parties concerned, using standard actuarial methodologies. I would, however, request notification of when the process was completed to the satisfaction of everyone, were this to happen. I would be happy to be bound by a document of “no public disclosure” for the foreseeable.

If the immediately above is unworkable, the previous paragraph’s conditions kick in. I would happily work with these conditions, too.

Whilst I continue to work from Stockholm and related, I would be working under a British passport. I don’t want to queue-jump due process. I would require, however, private, written assurances from the UK that they release all demands on me re my first-state responsibilities and loyalties. These obviously cannot lie from now on in with the UK, and will necessarily lie in Scandinavia.

If the above is practicable, we can sit down and begin to negotiate, even before I go back to Sweden, end of May.

If it’s not, I will take it I have done what I can and no interest is expressed by my homeland in any of the above, whatever its configuration.

The same procedures, then, would apply to any eventual interest Ireland and others may one day express in the future.

The three vetoes I retain, despite overall rights to decide for the foreseeable which I concede gladly to the people I have begun to work much more closely with, are as follows:

1. Participation by those connected with the UK, whether organisations or individuals. I will be flexible and evidence-based here.

2. Participation by those connected with the Irish Republic, whether organisations or individuals. I will be flexible and evidence-based here.

3. Silicon Valley big tech and related. The right to veto a choice by others here is retained absolutely by myself. No discussion.

This is where Nio Kvinnor’s sponsors and myself and the UK can begin to negotiate from, where goodwill may exist on all sides.

Thank you.

aside, definition, design philosophy, rationale

“On people called #melians who have no regrets”

In truth, whilst change IS inevitable — just as #siliconvalley and its dreadful hangers-on have universally, dogmatically and terrifyingly proclaimed for over half a century — its NATURE never automagically was. It’s just a fact, this: just a fact, too. For #bigtech is an only “half-the-story #tech”. And only ever has been.

Mil Williams, 27th April 2025, Arlanda Airport, Stockholm, Sweden,

It’s what I said a while ago.

There’s no courage involved in not feeling fear. And therefore no virtue whatsoever in being fearless.

There’s only virtue in doing something despite the need to overcome.

And one other thing I’ve learnt:

Not everyone should like you. If they did, you’d probably be doing something wrong.

Not wrong in itself. Wrong because in the first instance, in my experience, when you have an idea and are NOT stubborn enough not to have your course changed, it’s an error of crass proportions if and when you ultimately fail to persist in transforming the world, particularly when you ideas manifestly deserved to.

And sometimes, maybe often, we do fail to transform what’s around us with our thoughts and imagination precisely because, equally, we want to be liked: I mean, that is, that we tend to prefer to think not being liked is a sign we’re on the incorrect path.

But I now think the reverse. This is what I think. In two parts:

1. It’s always the bad guys who first see the dangers and implications — for them and their easy business models — of different and obstinately held ideas to their preferred future-present: the one they considered, out of their absolute sense of entitlement, absolutely theirs forever. Ideas like the ones, never necessarily originally but for sure always firmly, I’ve continued to propound over the years.

2. It’s always the good guys who last see the virtues and positives — for them and their terribly oppressed democratic communities — of different and obstinately held ideas to their assumed future-present: the one they were told was a result of inevitable change I mean, and absolutely NOT theirs forever.

In truth, whilst change IS inevitable — just as #siliconvalley and its dreadful hangers-on have universally, dogmatically and terrifyingly proclaimed for over half a century — its NATURE never automagically was. It’s just a fact, this: just a fact, too. For #bigtech is an only “half-the-story #tech”. And only ever has been.

This is why, when you want to deliver transformation, you have to accept you won’t be liked.

Firstly, the bad guys won’t ever do anything but hate you with their casually polite, practised and breezily easy business smiles.

And this will happen for perhaps the first five years.

And their goal is to break you, and make you stumble, and then dispirit you to the extent, perhaps, you kill yourself.

But then they have a problem. If they sense there will, after all, be a “next five years”, they realise the sword they wanted all that time for you to fall on no longer usefully, or at least reliably, exists.

So they will try to get closer to you and maybe even persuade you that all the while the smiles they sent your way with minimal financial breadcrumbs attached were actually, all the time in question, offerings of real dough.

And some of us out here give in at this point and take the money and run. And then the bad guys close down the ideas, and life continues to get worse for everyone else. Despite our ideas. Despite their coming originally into being. Despite what might have been.

The thing is … this is the thing. If you are stubborn … not original at all … just irreversibly firm in your preferred outcomes, even as fabulously flexible in your means and ways of getting there … well … you may end up concluding what I did when I got to the second and third and fourth and fifth “five years”: you only need to be liked by one group of people.

That’s all it ever takes.

Just one group is needed.

This group being?

The good guys who one day will realise that the #meliandialogue can be upturned: the islands of the world can beat — hands-down — the totalitarians.

Islands?

Places where we continue to understand that once in our histories we built fortresses in order to expand outwards with security and safety first and foremost. And that this was a good idea. And that this was the best idea. And that this is our next best step now.

And then we shall be … NOT #athens, ever … no. Not that. Not the #valley that causes so many tears. Never that. We never could be.

Rather, people called #melians who no longer shall have any regrets.

definition, design philosophy, rationale

after almost being killed (by a coked-up car driver)

happy to be alive

and happy to see i am

happy to be reliving

the moments that almost brought my demise

happy not to be sighing

because that would be a bridge too far

happy not to be signing

a warrant of death like that old death star

happy to be seeing

that soon my projects revive

happy to be being

like men and women of old and yore

happy to be knowing

that claire and her team are ready to go

happy to be sowing the seeds seriously out there

of liberating forces no one shall now rue

happy to realise deeply

that me and you will be together

happy to understand steeply and proud

that spires are more than monuments of stone

happy to reassert firmer than firmly

that aspiring to do good is what we need this very minute

happy to reaffirm brighter than brightly

that our love for each other is grander indeed

happy to reach out and hold you close

as hand-in-hand we stand strong and tall as castle walls

happy to fight trump and musk and all

as big tech blows its trust and terribly falls

happy to go to europe-wide

and set it out as the most fabulous ride

happy to embrace and bring to an end

with the people who knew all along how to fend

happy to fight

shoulder-to-shoulder with them:

from viking proud to irish blood

from wily italian to timely german

from historical greeks to croatian geeks

from dutch ingenuity to belgian privacy

from patent swiss to perfecting frenchly

from spanish spontaneity and shocking invention

and the powerful retention of multiple cultures

that deliver our predictive and protective prevention

as a europe resurgent

makes a world truer than true

where an aspirational tech

serves the human first of all —

not of the human

as an investor clarion call of the baldest and foolish —

and finding itself able

to reverse all tech’s criminal business

which silicon valley has turned into the darkest of whispers

and those sibilant sounds like snakes in the chip

and the violent abuse of men who claim hip

made up of a big money ever-so-cruel

where the humans we still remain all these days

were formerly the tools of the idiots of lame

claiming powerful stages as if by every right

when in fact all they have become tonight

are the totalitarians of the shameful

full of themselves to the max

as the gruels of incarceration

trickle down the chins

of the alpha males

of a cowardly coat-tailing

whilst none of them ever

has had an original thought ever

and each of them always

copies only what they misunderstand

as tech after tech

they break what otherwise could be grand

and dismantle the good

which even they might have handed us

and so that’s exactly why

no sighs this evening

and that’s exactly why

with claire and her team of utterly amazing citizens

entirely sufficient and racing wisely to the start

with a soul and heart of fabulous core

brooking no external partners at all

and completely constructed

on our own merits and wits

and our own certainties and hits

and our own collective geniuses and genders

and people who never these days go on benders

nor sniff the lines

no crack their brains

but prefer to fight the best of fights

and make it totally right again

as lights come on to switch the game

from being these stupid

utterly mad mad men

unable to do a single thing of real

as pails and pails overflow with waters

of our cleansing truths (even where a mite haughty)

clearly showing we’re good and fine for sure

whatever the sex or gender or preferences

because what we are is better than them

and now it’s high time we roundly conquered

all the way there and beyond to that infinity

so nothing remains of their terrifying wrongs:

our final victory then of an absolutist nature

where russia and trump’s america

finally lose the battle

to be anything stupidly

as ever-so-slowly we manage

little by little

to rise to the top

as the cream often did

and reach the summits of fitting hidden forces

which all these awful people knew nothing about

because life ain’t even dimly a question yet know

of proving how much you won a war

for the truth and grandeur of all of that

lies only once won in doffing your cap

as to other wars you then move calmly on:

winning by showing only (not telling ever)

and never singing such songs (never never)

and so this is where we finally are

in secrecy plus and your secrecy astonishing

and intuitively deepening further and further

and profoundly seeking

the capabilities of tangible human beings

rarely revealed clearly before

until the day we chose to believe

that what we are and what we may become

is far far more … than the valley’s machines

aside, definition, design philosophy, rationale

a jagged sleep

https://gb2earth.com/cl-bio | #intuitionvalidation #biotools and #bioweapons

jerking awake from slumber
instead of slowly 
arising to the day 

that's been my life 
under the violence and abuse 
of the people who used me

but now my jagged sleep
no longer makes me weep
because the move is latent 

and the changes are patent 
like parents of the child 
most wise and true 

and so when we actually 
finally get it all onboard 
it's democracy's sword 

to democracy's enemies 
we shall forge and fashion 
and make to break 

the abusers whose ruses 
and approaches of putins'
and cocaine-fuelled decisions 

have broken us all:
all this time we've been apart 
without soul or heart 

to be able to hope for better ways 
and days of dreams 
where the reams we write 

truly serve the purpose 
we were set on this rock 
to perform and act out 

like we knew already 
how to rout 
the monsters 

that assailed our dark nights
as we slept in confusion 
wounded by the clocks

where the sand ran out so fast
before our time it was:
yes it was it was it was ...

and so now it's all about this
and that 
and whatever it ain't too

because it's time we put behind us 
like rucksacks of the grandest explorers
the resentment that has separated 

you and me from him and them 
in order to just make it right 
with the might of ALL our intelligences 

and the perspicacities
of our clever cities and communities 
where the only thing that's left 

is to realise if human fire 
and that extreme and creative criminality 
battle us over and over 

the only solution can be 
more machines 
at the service of more humans 

not more humans 
at the service of more machines ...
for this is the rightful way 

where a sleep of a jagged 
raggedly bewitched humanity
brings us lastly 

to the senses we commonly lost 
all these years 
in utterly uncommon dazes

of months and weeks 
and seconds and minutes 
where the watch that was yours to be on

can now be the real solution 
of the nation's challenges 
instead of the real problem 

of the terrible occasion:
the 9/11s and then there's hamas
and its brutal strategic song

sounding out like twisted voice 
as gorging on the meats of hell
it sends us all to dwell on fears 

and hatreds to the very max
where sitting there 
omnipotent and forever 

all we can see 
is putin's russia 
with democracy targeted 

longitudinally and profoundly 
as if a torpedo to the waterlines 
of good fisherwomen and men 

striving to be something at last 
and never quite getting there 
as the hamas we know 

and the russia we battle 
and the 9/11 we obviated 
find that in ultimate outcome  

we may overcome 
in the name of a better world 
our tested natures and failures 

which all the above presupposed 
and now may lead to summits 
-- where not summats! -- 

of britain's best and europe's finest 
and to the united states 
of the most HONOURABLE of traditions  

just this and just that 
and just what we must do 
from now on in ... from now on in

a final gamble 
on absolutely everything 
that we care for in the professional for sure 

but in the personal too 
(where not the personal TWO ...
and then again maybe 

this can be you and me both) 
when the truth of it emerged once 
and now purposefully surges

for the benefit of all
and for the clarion call 
of a NATURAL justice 

and for just doing right 
via the mightiest of sights 
and the crosshairs 

of the blessed
and the rested 
and the rest of us SO yearning for the right 

in order to find some way of being human 
where all around us 
lie the untruthful of these wars

like whores of devilishly ancient rhymes 
and those times 
that dispense with our attempts 

to be good
as we ought 
and as we were taught too it's true

because it's all true it is 
what i say and proclaim yes it's true
so listen now 

and please do both as 
and how i want ...
do as and how i want and NEED 

and sometimes have had to plead it's also true
just do it yeah? 
and do it now ... and how!

aside, definition, design philosophy, rationale

on a human victory

https://gb2earth.com/research/newlean | https://newlean.org (ask me for the password if required — this is an ongoing project and developing whitepaper)

or what achievements really consist of

it's doing what you wanted 
but only hoped for
and maybe you wanted more than you hoped for
and maybe you expected deep down
the sound of total victory 
and anything else for a while seems like less 
and maybe even feels like a failure of the deepest of all
but in truth a total victory just ain't what humans are about 
when human is what we're about 
because a total anything 
is a pyrrhic everything  

and so i begin to warm to you finally 
and the idea that without writing a single line of code
i have convinced one of the biggest organisations in tech 
and those companies that work alongside them true  
that just my words and terms of english
have been enough to show how a new world 
exists right out there 
and that it's no longer on my part a failure of the worst 
in any shape whatsoever 
nor a loss of the least 
to propose that i might accept working with disruption of this nature
primarily because the culture of the big and the small 
in this case become us
as one and the same 
and the same and the one 
since both of us converging separately anon
have arrived at conclusions of parallel lines
where arguments cogently strung together 
on two-pagers of simple a4
eschewing as we do the fancy graphics 
of "say what you're going to say 
and then say it 
and then summarise it"
and where in fact the bullets pointedly hit 
the marks of zero innovation 
and even less invention
because to follow these paths so well-trodden --
so religiously i mean --
is to die a death of a thousand mutts 
as dog-days encroach and shroud our thinking

for it's time once again to move well on 
from the old old old man's valley 
where even the youngest entrepreneur
finds themselves trained up in the fuddy-duddy  
of the mere tweaking of tech 
so no one may rock the boats of existing portfolios 
nor business models galore (but actually hoary as hell)

because it's time the bells of brand new relationships
consecrated on firm and financially win/win terms 
begin to bring to the world 
the teams and reams  
of the gutenberg of intuitive thinking:

the printing-press of arationality 
changing the way we do technology much more easily 
and being as there's no better way to do this 
than working back from the customer always 
in combination with a new lean that reasons 
with care and compassion 
and rationales of the very best 
to the very VERY maximum 
HOW to extract the truths NO ONE says 
but EVERYONE knows full well
and all too well
and as well as the next
as we lie at night suffering the lies 
that tie the world up in knots 
and which have blotted our futures 
as they are held by their throats
gory and cruel as the fossil fuels they freely promote even now 
by those who care only for planets outside 
and little for the one we all grew up on --
and here i mean all of us 
and how i mean it's clearly seen 
and how it's been! -- because this IS it i say:
WELL time we found amongst the rich and poor
the course that aligns our interests both 
and so nothing better than a brand new process 
that unleashes our humanity as never before

and so i'm ready to see what's next
not as failure for another 
nor for me or them
nor total victory for me or another 
nor us as we might see ourselves 
nor even as the outputs of the lyricists of ancient harps 
as they start to sing again out loud and proudly 
but rather quite instead 
a victory of the grandest for a GOOD citizenry 
wishing to bring about a humanity of the brightest 
by simply enabling our gut feeling and intuitive ingenuities 
in ways we never imagined ever

this is what it is then this text i write 
as i send this poem to the people who know much better than me 
what's happening on the inside-out 
and how this will affect the outside-in
and so from me -- as this --
just as a missive 
of my final conformity 
and my capacity to embrace you now --
those of you 
who know (and how you do!) -- 
in my full cognisance
of the scientific and evidence-based realities 
which (burnished anew)
will renew and repair the horrors these warlike peoples 
have visited on the rest of us without qualms 
where to date only psalms are able for now 
to protect us with their prayers
and beseechings and readings 
of the sacred stones 
and the rites that serve strangely to right our wrongs ...

because whatever happens now 
the killing-field will be levelled
and new lean will become the tool we use --
shining as we will ... for sure! -- to release 
as we must and should 
and ought to and would have 
many many decades ago
if only we had cared to listen 
to the equally sacred understandings in tow
which we blithely ignored 
as stupidly tawdry attempts 
to go beyond making easy money 
and actually solving problems 
which weren't just making more money it's true 
in manners 
quite ill-mannered and foolish and unkind 
as we rewound to the past 
even as our tech is of now
and even as we chose firmly to screw the world 
for everything we could scrape 
and make ours 
to the exclusion of a legacy
we just DIDN'T want to make at all free
in any way whatsoever whatsoever 

and so now all this changes 
as i approach the companies
which working together 
in common cultural dissonance and rub
with different ideas yet common outcomes even so
and uncommon sensibilities in beautiful consonances 
for these are the resonances 
which enriching 
now demand we hand over to each other our destinies 
not as passive fates 
too late to the party to do anything wise 
but instead to a common goal 
that SHALL be that of rescuing our species 
from its long-term idiocies 
by tapping into that fabulous skillset and virtue 
present all this goddamn time:
the intuition of a humankind 
multiplied up a billion times and more 
being you and you and you and you
and me and her 
and thee and tree 
and us ALL seeing clearly anew 
as if never before ... 
... ever before:
THIS all being 
our shared future-present collective fate
awaiting us all from now on in 
and no longer too late to the party i mentioned
because that party is the citizenry we will fully reconstitute 
not as brutal future robots of silicon
but just sentient human beings 
achieving the total victories of me and you
no longer gone ...

https://open.spotify.com/track/2W6PNGCN4PGwPMf1jYazL4?si=qTYn168wSXWp-Z8v3GylfA&context=spotify%3Aplaylist%3A6S1UmnFR0ThrsO2lV82Moa

definition, design philosophy, rationale

but i do i make sense (in worlds of incense)

My latest #poem on #siliconvalley’s corrupting choices, plus a link to the new online #whitepaper on #newlean … and other observations …

i'm incensed to be honest 
and yet not:
no gorgeous odour drifts like a breeze
of glorious glees 
nor assails plentifully my senses 

but incensed i remain even so
at how rich people remain rich 
by plundering our brains
and attacking our better selves  
whilst all we had been asking for was this:

to be human to the max 
to enjoy being in the sack even 
with someone who hadn't met us online 
before we began face-to-face to vibe ...
... who hadn't had us sussed 

and hadn't trussed us up mentally 
so that they saw us way earlier 
than we ever saw them 
via that den of thievery
that is silicon valley since forever and all

because the real problem now 
is that surveillance to this max 
which we conduct on each other 
and use to blather and gossip about  
so that the outcomes 

become attempted suicides 
and depressions of the most revealing 
and the permanent anxieties 
of living a life 
as if it were a death on legs 

that's what big tech has brought us to 
and that's why i'm incensed as i am
and angry so very much 
that the human touch even that 
is now a monetisable gap 

that an elon and satya 
can invade and intrude with their choices 
to make the kind of technologies that hurt 
and be leaders of the worst 
instead of wanting to be peers of the first 

yes i am incensed in the western sense:
angry to the very maximum 
and it seems my words fall 
on barren grinds
of coffees never exchanged 

yet in a more eastern sense 
i smell your comprehension growing 
and see you showing 
an embrace approaching  
to my ideas of #intuitionvalidation 

and it's this incense i sense 
of the flowers and the astringent 
and the spices of natural inclinations
which i now turn to 
as i turn my back on the west i was born to

because it's here i find my pals of thought 
where nothing needs repeating 
and nothing needs reasserting 
and all is agreement and fulsome assent 
and that's what it's all about:

knowing how your place
is no longer where you are 
nor has ever been perhaps 
and maybe it's never been so 
and just time ... just time to go"

aside, definition, design philosophy, rationale

“Good to meet you … Miljenko Williams” | on dark figure, gaslighting, security and the future of Western democracy

A very brief video that an unknown person or persons posted about me in 2015, just as I began to move closer to the UK Guardian newspaper

The day our security agencies decided that neo-crime and dark figure did not need a law-enforcement response was the day we opened the doors to a future Ukraine; an organised criminality in the UK where we now have an army of embedded criminals in all levels of society which outnumbers the British armed forces; and a broad and widely shared sense of citizen, perhaps even political-party, hopelessness about everything that happens quite toxically to Western and related democracies. That is, none of us can reasonably believe in better any more.
Mil Williams, Chester UK, 18th January 2024

Screenshots of a very brief video which piggybacked on an article the UK Guardian newspaper had just published back in 2015 on my relationship with the newspaper, being this latter the final screenshot in the above series

What follows …

What follows is a series of observations on a real case of targeted gaslighting on a democratic citizen — myself, being one of many similarly affected over the years by a nexus, I guess, of tech-bros and outlier security interests in the UK, and maybe other states and actors, too: a longitudinal case which already led to my undue and improper incarceration for a month in a UK mental facility back in 2003, after an experience in a broken-backed open-source community the previous year of 2002 called OpenOffice.org.

• gb2earth.com/citizenx

This open-source site was sponsored and paid for mainly by the then Sun Microsystems, but the dysfunctionality arose from both sides: corporate and independent developers in equal parts.

First, then, a poem about the impact this has had on me over the years.

“tech-bro”: a #poem by #milwilliams

in english a bro of the tech nature killed me

in swedish a bro is a bridge

if only i’d been able to make my life again

in a land like the latter where good people rule

but my pain and misery all came from the place

where i had the misfortune to be born

and whilst in swedish a tech-bro

would be a path to a better future

in english it’s better so much better

to be burned

but since i don’t believe in burning anyone

i reason the problem is myself

and so it’s myself

that mathematically must be removed

from any equation that includes

the future of humankind

this is why when the tech-bros

of english-speaking lands

burnt my person

in the manner of a most inflammatory form

of gaslighting imaginable

in its scorn

i never forgot

what they did to me

just as i began to fly

and just as i began to try

to lift my head higher

and fly to better skies

why now i burn those bros memories

even though arson is not my thing

but not as beautiful bridges of swedish ways

but as stupid men of patriarchal “hey!”

So what do we do?

The day our security agencies decided that neo-crime and dark figure did not need a law-enforcement response was the day we opened the doors to a future Ukraine, an organised criminality in the UK where we now have an army of embedded criminals in all levels of society which outnumbers the British armed forces, and a broad and widely shared sense of citizen, perhaps even political-party, hopelessness about everything that happens quite toxically to Western and related democracies. That is, none of us can reasonably believe in better any more:

• gb2earth.com/hunch/neocrime | #darkfigure #neocrime

We need to believe in better, of course: but in order to begin to have a right to do so we must say enough is enough in the grey area of discretionary law enforcement and security where discretion is given a bad name in the interests of expediency. That is, in precisely that area of operational manoeuvres which utilises both dark figure and what I prefer to call neo-crime, whatever side of the law we find ourselves on.

We can only reacquire the authority Western democracy once had if we start to deliver on this: only this. And we shall not, until and if we do.

Ever again.

If you find what I have written today interesting and/or engaging, please do get in touch:

• mil.williams@gb2.earth

definition, design philosophy, rationale

On choosing to be a servant not an enforcer

I am minded to write this poem because of a small and discreet event I attended at Liverpool John Moores University, one evening some years ago.

The event was given by a chief constable of a nearby north of England police force.* The standout stat I remember he offered us was when he wanted to contextualise what differentiates the average experience of a police officer with the average experience of a democratic citizen — and perhaps, in so doing, making it easier for both sides to be less opposing and more conciliatory.

Most citizens, he said, experienced 10 to 11 “life events”: what he meant was serious incidents such as witnessing the horrible injuries of others, maybe their violent passing, one’s own experiences of near-death, and/or perhaps the death of a family member or close friend.

Then he asked the collected audience what they thought the stat was for the average police officer. Not even the attending officers themselves knew how to hazard a guess.

The figure was 400.

It sank in. He let it sink in slowly and quietly, too.

It will never be forgotten.

That is how much the average police officer suffers. And wherever they individually choose to remain servants of the citizenry, not enforcers of the same, is when we have the very best of our societies standing rightfully to attention in front of us.

Just this.

Have a safe day.

(And just that.)

* I also recall the fact that I was once very firmly informed by a community police officer in a suburb of Chester, UK, that whilst the public liked to see the British police as a service, the British police never see themselves as anything but a force.

“the 400: a poem about service”

i was told one evening

by a chief constable near where i lived

amongst an audience of people good and free

that 400 was the number

which for the rest of us was 10 or 11

being life events

that break our souls

and make us weep with heaps of tears

like babbling brooks

when nothing’s then right

and all is then took

and life is then no longer worth living at all

and this chief of big team

was the kindest of souls

and he knew how to roll with the times and the goals

but equally he was clear

what should be made more clear

and this was that police and citizenry both

needed to come closer

not as yoke of law

nor as harness of tough

but just as two parts which completed a whole

and so his view of policing

and of law enforcement proudly served

i’ve found in very few places since then

and how

but where i have seen this

is where i am now

which is sweden and stockholm

and where they really must take a bow

and here i have seen

that policing is a team

but where force doesn’t define

the many first few steps

and only kicks in when a blue line protects

the service which otherwise

inscribes the good deeds

of a law enforcement and policing philosophy

designed specifically

to deliver a broader humanity

via a society engineered and scoped

to improve what we do to each other

as human beings seen as such

rather than automatically

as monsters capable of horrendous touch

and so this is what really floats my boats

much much more than relationships

of a personal sort of love that deludes

because what i need

and what i want

is much much less than to quantify the affection

that baldly a person might feel for my person

and much much more to qualify the ways

we should be treating ourselves society-wide

hiding from nothing

and fearing absolutely no one

as we relearn to live

with the kindest heads and hearts

and so i say

and so i say i may

that love of people is a service not a force

and law enforcers who prefer to serve us fully

are worth their weight in gold all told

and so these are the places

where really i want to live and work

and have the deepest of friends and colleagues

never lovers or wife or anything more

because my focus from now on in

is the health of my civilisation

and the democracies i want us to repopulate

as every step we now must take

involves us just choosing … to do good

aside, definition, design philosophy, rationale

on being a FEARless CITIZEN / the dreams of those who dream the unreal / all i want this christmas

when you teach 
and reach out 
and don't preach but do advocate 
these certain ways that are different 
from all the differences everyone else sees
and accepts 
and may reject or not  
then i am not you 
and you are not me 

because what i am looking to do 
is change the "you and me"
we have been so far 
in humanity's historical charter 
of what is good 
and what is not:
i'm not prepared to settle any more 
for a relativism of core 
that destroys our capacity 
to construct good and bad 
in the measure they had 
once upon a crime 
and in rhyming couplets
that mean something deeper 
than a ditty of shitty superficial resonances 

i aspire to much more you see
because i believe 
we humans are built out of cruelty 
and good
depending on where we are stood 
and the challenge for me now
(and how it is 
this challenge i see 
how it is for sure)
is to make it possible 
for not just an individual 
to progress mighty and fine 
across the timeline of their person
but for the generations too
that they make up and inhabit true ...
... well ... that finally 
they may not need to reset 
and just about almost always reboot
what we know from one to the next 

because if the driver of humanity's improvement 
really is only ever 
the nonconformism of intelligent individual
where corporate-style teamworks serve simply  
to only implement and make real 
the dreams of those who dream the unreal
we need far more dreamers of the unreal
than we currently have 
if we are to survive and thrive 
quite outwith ourselves one day 
when FEARful prayer would no longer be needed 
to deities sometimes just 
and in equal measure as cruel as gruel 
at least in the "sometimes"
that history has loosened upon us 

and so all i want for christmas 
is just the sense 
that together
you and me
me and cee
(out of a love of the most real
even where not expressed ever 
for whatever the circumstances 
which present themselves 
as a present that is current 
as well as wrapped up 
like no gift ever given) 
we might just soon enough 
be tough enough 
to bring enough truth 
and compassion and firm resilience 
to the science 
of building the FEARless CITIZEN

because me and you
that's what we are
and what we've been
all these years 
they knocked us back 
like into a sack where good guys are tumbled 
by the really really bad
and dumped into waterless wells
(like we were rocks that don't ever get to)
and some these guys and sometimes gals
do no good 
but only stuff the neighbourhoods 
with more and more legitimated mafias 
of nearby cities and then again 
way beyond 

so it's now time we put a stop to it all my love:
time we said enough is enough 
and then did in consequential act 
what was needed and always has been
and that the rough guys 
who were never tough
but just cowards
and only apparently hard 
when possessed of the full knowledge 
no one could properly stop them ever 
nor stop their awful cruelty 
born of power's abuse and total misuse 
as they winged our beautiful civilisations 
over and over again 
like icaruses 
of a sun which should only have embraced
and instead was laced with poisons galore
by the criminals of yore
but also the mafias of RIGHT NOW

time i say
to make love where we can 
and as women and men
and genders-all
we make these calls to love as practised 
where humans communicate 
with fabulous exes 
that become the kisses 
which seal the real human deal ...

... and then when we meet people
who care not at all for all this 
it's time we became as firm as hell
and gave them bottles of their own medications 
as we salvage the reputations 
of every civilisation of good good hood 
into a future-present 
of neighbour "should"
and "want"
and "wish" being the most at this time of year
anyone has the right
to see delivered and given and handed over 
and no longer feared
no longer feared 
no longer feared ... at all


a world where it suddenly becomes
possible and practical
to rebuild
once more
the FEARless CITIZEN

aside, definition, design philosophy, rationale

heaven isn’t a place / art of the heart / the soul redeemed

because when you love unconditionally 
is when you arrive not at bill gates 
but at real pearly gates 
where your place isn't a state 
of vatican embezzlement 
but of true affection and amusement
and of honest kindnesses 
expressed like the best espresso you ever sipped
being your lips that day on dublin river 
and so this christmas i hope to find you on stockholm isle
and maybe we spend a while together 
where everyone can see us holding our palms out 
not in surrender or white flag 
but in the glorious colours of blue and yellow 
one a sanctuary from all that is bad 
and one fighting on behalf of us daily
by the minute and to the second 
never seconded from anything that wasn't a deep belief 
in the fact that putin is not mad 
but just entirely and completely bad 
without redemption and without ascension 
and only awaiting 
if some day a justice of a natural kind 
may be delivered duly:
the descent to the darkest embers 
of unending fires 

and so all that's being left for me to say
is how much i love you
and always shall 
and if you cannot show yourself now
or cannot yet 
or may not any more  
then there will always be a time 
i will find time for you 
when you can finally hold my hand again 
and make me the happiest man who ever walked this rock
proud and tall and amongst it all 
because that's what this is all about dearest soulmate of forever 
where our shared and intrinsic souls 
our fabulously intertwined souls 
become arts of the heart 
and our work then finds itself never-ending  

and our life is always of utility now 
even as distances make the kiss on the lips
quite impractical for the moment 
still one day 
we may one day say 
it's time to hug each other 
in beautiful lacy embrace 
NOT of the poison-laced juliet or romeo
but being just the moments when utterly chilled together 
on common sofa 
we end our days in an uncommonly handsome conversation 
of a meeting of minds and body
night after day
and in all our joyous beams not of foundation or construction 
but actually just of sun 
where your eyes glisten and shine with happiness 
and mine weep and sob 
as finally i am accepted exactly for what i am 
by the only woman 
who knew what made me right again 

just that state out there (if you're ever so lucky 
and if fortune blesses you 
and if your life is one of fortunate outcomes 
and not of war nor conflicts horrific)
but that state 
that one which makes you unconditionally beloved 
without further recourse to the cruel
and without further imposition 
of those gruels of incarceration i suffered 
once upon a crime 
but just a hand again 
a hand outstretched 
never clasping or grasping 
but compassionate and warm 
and slender-fingered 
and SO elegantly yours after all

and so i do await that moment 
one day in the near future 
when maybe soon 
and if not then 
well ... then maybe later
you may grace my presence 
and give me the notion and opportunity 
to remind you 
of all that you have meant to me 
and mean verily still
not out of illness or infirmity 
but simply the veracity of knowing 
the soul IS where it all lies 
in truth:
a very human redemption ... for us all

Category: design philosophy

Terms of negotiation between myself, Nio Kvinnor’s sponsors, and the UK

What today’s post is about: on negotiating a JV between the proposed Stockholm-based IKEA-style tech company Nio Kvinnor and the UK government and its various agencies

“On people called #melians who have no regrets”

after almost being killed (by a coked-up car driver)

a jagged sleep

on a human victory

or what achievements really consist of

but i do i make sense (in worlds of incense)

“Good to meet you … Miljenko Williams” | on dark figure, gaslighting, security and the future of Western democracy

What follows …

“tech-bro”: a #poem by #milwilliams

More on the video and how it continues to impact me

So what do we do?

On choosing to be a servant not an enforcer

“the 400: a poem about service”

on being a FEARless CITIZEN / the dreams of those who dream the unreal / all i want this christmas

heaven isn’t a place / art of the heart / the soul redeemed