Merriman Consortium

Summary

The Merriman Consortium is an international consortium of economics, physics, and policy research laboratories and institutes. Most of the economic plans which appear on the ΛCORS network are developed and hosted at participating institutions. Most of the institutional policy plans adopted by Pacificus Logistico-Industrius are developed and recommended by member labs of the Merriman Consortium. Most of the participating institutions are in territory or enclaves controlled by PLI, but not all.  

Research Programme

Theory

The Merriman Consortium's research programme often appears pseudo-religious to outside observers, due to its preoccupation with teleology, the purpose of life, the nature of the self, the "life-cycle of the universe", and due to its permissive and cavalier attitude towards appropriating religious terminology as a rhetorical tool to explain the significance of fundamental theorems and physical laws. This may be due to the research programme's theoretical proximity to Process Theology; indeed, several scholars in the Merriman Consortium cite A.N. Whitehead and J.B. Cobb as inspirations for their work. Kit Merriman's 2008 paper laying out the first iteration of the research programme cites papers from J.B. Cobb on ecological civilization. Fundamentally, the research programme is based around the hypothesis that human affairs are part of a broader, universal process of entropy production. In other words, the programme interprets human affairs as a manifestation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.  

Application

The consortium has developed a framework of international law based on the theory discussed above, and seek ultimately to maximize net entropy production at the level of the Biosphere. Practically speaking, this bears out in its strictly environmentalist recommendations for domestic and foreign policy to the PLI and ΛCORS. The Consortium has been known to endorse and provide leadership to the Astartes Ferronum which has been known to impose strict sanctions on those it believes to be undermining the proper cycling of chemicals through the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, such as Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus.

Perhaps the most prominent application Merriman theory is seen in Kit Merriman's Curriculum for Developing Children in a Globalized World. Despite a somewhat narrow focus on its subject matter, it has been influential outside child psychology due to its drawing of a conceptual connection between domestic economy and world economy, and for its guidance of the the once-extensive Safe.ly network.