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The Next Social Revolution?
Cryofan writes "In a recent interview, Howard Rheingold (author of Smart Mobs) discussed the possibility of a 'new economic system' born of 'unconscious cooperation' embodied by such technologies as Google links and Amazon lists, Wikipedia, wireless devices using unlicensed spectrum, Web logs, and open-source software. Rheingold speculates that 'the technology of the Internet, reputation systems, online communities, mobile devices...may make some new economic system possible....We had markets, then we had capitalism, and socialism was a reaction to industrial-era capitalism. There's been an assumption that since communism failed, capitalism is triumphant, therefore humans have stopped evolving new systems for economic production.' However, Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'"
Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent
innovations as file-sharing
Don't worry, they can only manage this for a very short period of time. They're all ice vendors in the age of the fridge, and it's not a rut that they can simply step out of. They're in the wrong business entirely - technology doesn't just stand aside when a few vested interests complain to Capitol Hill.
Anyone who thinks that human beings are going to work together for the common good, especially in an economics setting, has been smoking too much weed. We don't even have a FAIR capitalistic society yet.
Besides it's one thing to say that new forms of economics should be created, but it's quite another to go out and create that system. And even then, who is to say it won't be too idealistic, or just plain ineffective (communism, etc.)?
The process of evolution is never ending. Some ideas get recycled in a modified form. Look at barter: the trading of goods or services, for goods or services. Has anyone fixed someones computer in exchange for something? Thats how I got my current office chair.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I think the same can be said of a lot of Democracies these days.
But then I looked around and all I saw was people clawing their way to the top, stepping on each other in a futile grab for something they couldn't reach: "enough." Nobody ever has enough in this society. Nobody has enough money, enough respect or enough love. We are a society of maximizers, always worried about what we're giving up for having something else. "I could take a sick day now, but I have to make my car payment." "I don't like my job, but I'll stay there and be miserable because other jobs don't pay enough."
It won't work on a global scale. All it would take is one person taking advantage of another for the whole thing to collapse.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
It wont be until we can let go of fear that we will be able to evolve into such a perfect 'Star Trek' society where people work for the sake of people, and money isn't used (yay geek reference). But this is semi-irrational since there will always be fear as long as there is death and suffering.
For this system to work would require a major percentage of the global populace to commit to two things. 1) Helping/Aiding others so that they do not suffer and 2) Stopping any single person or group from causing suffering.
So yes, the article has a nice theory behind it, but if I see it in my lifetime, or the lifetime of my great great grandkids, I will be amazed.
"I am the Black Mage! I casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down!" ~8BT
Well, sort of. In corporate capitalism, the cooperation is conscious and determined to maximize profits regardless of any human cost.
Which is to say, that if there were some way to hire union workers, grind them into cat food, and sell them at a profit, some corporation would be doing that right now.
In real capitalism, _I_ would outsource _my_ job to a woefully underpaid Indian and pocket the difference instead of some pointy-haired-boss.
The capitalist system, at least here in the U.S., is firmly in place.
Please repeat after me: capitalism with a hundred thousand government rules and regulations functions the same way as communism. a + 100000*b = c.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Any economic system that required the human race to become less greedy and selfish will ultimately fail. Human beings by definition are greedy, it's only the the extent of the individuals' greed that varies.
This is why Communism has for the most part failed. Any Communist regime has to account for that. The USSR tried to squash greed by keeping the populace isolated from the rest of the world - you can't want what you don't know exists- but information leaked into the country and the people wanted what the rest of the world had. China has succeded to a certain extent, but they stop greed by the brutal repression of the people.
One final thought, any attempt at a new economy will have to survive the leaders of the current economy (governments and the rich and powerful)trying to subvert it for their own profit.
I work for a large and very dominate bio-medical company. One of our products is flow-cytometers. They are used in looking at the relative size, complexity and antibodies a cell possesses. They use lasers, Photo Multiplier tubes,fairly complex electronics and reagents to do this.
Most of the data and techniques that are used are shared by our customers at Purdue
Of course universities are more likely to share data than our pharmaceutical customers but that is to be expected and they do share some data mainly in regards to techniques. Our customers have also started forming user groups and organizing conferences. Because of this format stem cell research, mapping of the human genome, and progress fighting aids and cancer has quickened. I am pretty excited to be a part of it all we even have some custom products that allow our customers to look at bacteria!(much smaller than cells).
What is even more exciting is that our latest generation of instruments are being purchased by people who have never used them before(yay profit!) and are in completely different fields. I always make sure to point them to purdue so even more data can be shared.
Over all I am very optimistic about these developments. In the next 5-10 years I would not be surprised to see major develpments if not cures in all immune system related fields.
"To Err is Human To Forgive is Divine neither of which is Marine Corp Policy"-My SNCOIC
Please repeat after me: capitalism with a hundred thousand government rules and regulations functions the same way as communism. a + 100000*b = c.
Is that a statement I somehow missed while reading Marxist literature?
A capitalist system, even a protective one such as the one found in the U.S., encourages corporations to maximize their profits, and even to be exploitive. In a communist economy, state owned monopolies protect the proletariat at the expense of profits and efficiency.
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
Communism didnt work because people are flat out lazy and greedy. Throughout time, the US and other big countries will lead into this socialism/communism and capitalism will gradually play less of a role as things become more and more mechanized, especially farming. People didnt want to grow crops for the common good, but electricity doesnt seem to care. OSS works because the maker of the software doesnt have to remake it for everyone who wants the software, computers can simply copy it, and not everyone has to contribute; the OSS is meant to be abused by average users with the few who feel they should/want to make something for the common good. If power becomes less of an issue (fusion power obviously), and the few ppl (scientists, related to the people who make open software) will design something (farming or productive robots) for the average lazy user. Communism required too much from the average user.
... potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world
Not going to happen - because the US will just swallow up (read: US-Australia Free Trade Agreement) anything that seems to be creeping ahead, thus quashing these technologies in other parts of the world as well.
Read this and understand - the world will be a better place!
Who is John Galt?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Greed is not the problem - greed is a pejorative word for self interest. Any system that does not recognize that all human (and most animal and plant) behavior is based on self-interest is doomed to failure.
And self-interest didn't succeed. Nature eventually and inevitably produced humans, and we continued act in self-interest but with more power, destroying ourselves and the world that created us. Essentially, nature's policy of self-interest is doomed eventually to destroy it. Nature's encouragement of greed/self-interest is now something that humanity, if it wants to survive, must overcome.
'unconscious cooperation'
Wouldn't it still be conscience since it's trying to, uhh, earn the most amount of money possible?
There's been an assumption that since communism failed, capitalism is triumphant
China isn't doing so badly. It seems most capitalistic societies are taking a more socialist turn - providing healhcare, welfare, education, etc. Seems capitalism sort of fused with the ideas of communism.
Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies
Open source is superior to brand name any day. Linux > windows. Firefox > IE. However, the latter both dominate the market, but Linux and Mozilla still have their fair share. Open source is the only example of REAL capitalism - since it's based on rugged individualism and can compete with huge corperations. That being said, it also forces big companies to innovate their software. You can bet that IE 7 will closely resemble FireFox.
quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'"
That is a fairly valid assumption, however, file sharing seems to be as rampant as ever. Kazaa, Ares, Gnucleus, eMule... if you want it, it's out there.
Case in point, desire for profit still does give companies incentive to improve upon existing models. The best thing that has ever happened to big corperations was open source - free, creative innovations which they can utilize in their up and coming products. Most of it was way too technologically advanced for the average user (try and explain to your parents how and why you need a 3 partition drive to have Linux and Windows).
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
You mean socialism, right?
I'm pretty sure that Lenin, who was the most influential in creating Communism (again, not Marxism or Socialism,) ran his country according to Communism.
Also for examples of true Socialist failure check out Owen's New Lanark or his New Harmony. Both were truly Socialist communities that quickly failed.
Furthermore, there is nothing new about this "New Economy." A couple people posting to their blogs or contributing to OSS hardly constitutes a "New Economy."
OSS may have the same effect on Capitalism that Socialism had. It may change the system subtley, making it better. Global changes evolve gradually not radically.
Most all the postings on this story are making the assumptions prevalent to the last forty years. Yet if the topic is evolution of economic systems, then a broader view is called for. People should include the data points of FDR, Lincoln, and Hamilton. I would think that even the youngsters among you might have a clue that the New Deal had different intentions for corporate behavior than we have been inculcated to expect.
With respect to the Soviet Union, the simple minded are calling it an economic failure without noting the paradox that the military sector was successful and relatively efficient, while the civilian sector was the pits. A good explanation for the paradox, from someone who predicted the date of the collapse five years out, is that the Soviet Union did not have what we would call entrepenurial small privately owned corporations to invent better ways of doing things. In this view, US capitialism is a danger to itself, and not least because of the dominate role of large public corporations.
A capitialist state that discrimates against speculation will do better for us. Note that Malaysia's relative quick recovery from the "Asian flu" as compared to those neighbors who followed the IMF prescriptions give us a current data point.
And without a data point, I claim that descrimination against publicly traded corporations would be a good idea. One of the things this does is keep the scale of the corporations down, and thus tend to keep them out of political power.
Where do these ideas come from? How did you ever get it into your head that it is the outstanding consensus of the philosophical community that psychological egoism is successful? The case is nothing of the sort. Psychologial egoism is widely regarded within the philosophical community as a naive and failed ideaology.
Are there actually institutions of higher learning mandating the reading of that "objectivist" tripe?
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad people are thinking about these issues at any rate. But, you know, over the years I've become quite fond of the following hypothesis.
The naive psychological egoist is readily convinced of his unwarranted assertion of universal egoism, only because he himself is so thoroughly absorbed with his own.
It is only by your assertion of universal egoism - an elaborate coping mechanism - that you are able to rationalism your persistent anti-social motives, behaviors, and ideaologies.
The world is not the mirror of your subconscience, nor are you its prism.
Thank God.
-Anonymous
I thought this paragraph was interesting:
I think the guy is wrong, unless/until the Powers that Be actually manage to DRM all computers. Until then, possibilities remain. There are still bands exploring free music distrubtion for publicity. Brittanica hasn't managed to suppress Wikipedia. SCO isn't selling very many $699 licenses for Linux.As technology progresses, goods become more and more commodity, and even replace services. (Where once you hired a maid to come vacuum your floor, now you can buy a Roomba; where once you used the Roomba on your carpet, now you can install metabolic carpet that simply eats the dirt.) Consider the Recording industry and its fight against inevitablity. Why's it fighting so hard? Because its business model is based solely on the scarcity of physical media to store music on and control over distribution of those media. With P2P, that scarcity is obsolete.
Simply, it's incumbent upon businesses to reduce costs, one means of which comes from increased efficiency. Increased efficiency means lower cost per unit produced, which means either more units produced per unit cost, or fewer units produced -- another artificial scarcity. Seeing any knobs inevitably cranking towards zero here?
This is going to happen everywhere, even in our vaunted technology sector, where we're -- were -- paid the "big bucks" because we understood all this high-tech shit. Well, it's been demonstrated that genetic algorithms and such can, ultimately, design faster, more efficient, more powerful, &c chips than humans can. As that technology progresses, we'll have programs writing programs, too. We've got prototype Mickey-D's that don't have any humans at the counter: swipe your card, push some buttons, and then, finally, a person hands you your McNuggets or whatever -- and those humans are replaceable, too. It will, eventually, be cheaper to have some sort of robotic contraption flip your burger, wrap it up and hand it to you than it is to keep bodies on staff.
Intentionally or no, technology obsoletes scarcity, the fundamental thing upon which even the need for capital is based; everything's simply there. Without scarcity, what good is money? The very knob which needs to be cranked up for capitalism to be useful and, to the extent it is, beneficial to society is progressively, unstoppably being cranked down towards zero.
What happens then? Because either it's going to hit zero, or the next Dinosaur Killer's going to strike first, in which case it's all moot anyway. Foregoing the latter, WTF point will capitalism serve?
Now, I'm not remotely arguing that it's been unnecessary all along; we wouldn't be where we are unless the world had turned out exactly as it did. But we're only just beginning the creep into the post-scarcity age. What happens then? One way or another, there will always be some things that are scarce no matter what, but the fundamental fact is, scarcity is, itself, becoming scarce.
And, FTR, communism and socialism have always failed not because there's a market underneath, struggling to get out, but simply because of human greed, be it for wealth, power or whatever else. In a post-scarcity world, does greed even make sense?
Right! You are! No one else would talk about the current election with two parties, leaving out the name of the country and other details, and assume to be understood- but an American. (Ok, I'll cut you some slack: this *is* slashdot, which is located in the US
Now, you know, a lot of the "rest of the world" isn't quite as paranoid about other people wanting to steal their stuff. A lot of us actually believe that the vast majority of the time, most people like to cooperate. And there are enough people that like to act ethically that things like wikipedia and open-source can actually work. Heck, not just work, they can work better than your cut-throat capitalism.
Oh, I should mention this while I'm ranting: the US economy's fortunes have very little to do with your brand of aggressive capitalism. If anything, you're doing well despite it. In the first part of the last century, you folks had a lot of oil, which is essential for fuelling an industrial economy and war machine. That's all. Just like England became wealthy with coal, you became wealthy because of oil- just an accident of history, really.
I believe St. Francis explained that having wealth made you fearful, and wanting to protect it. It was easier for him just to renounce material wealth, so he wouldn't have to worry.
Now, this is a crucial point: the US has been in decline now for some 30 years as an economic power. Your GDP goes up, but you people aren't any happier. This wealth that you accumulated is causing you some nasty "cognitive dissonnance", and you're choosing to resolve it by believing odd notions- like you're somehow superior, and the rest of the world is after you. Not so.
There is no problem with these other economic systems so long as they do not require coercion. People obviously ARE willing to contribute to things like wikipedia, distributed proofreaders, open source projects, peace brigades international, etc, etc... These things WORK. Who are you to say that human nature is evil, in the face of such feats? Humans sure are capable of incredible, unspeakable barbarity. But that's only human realization, quite distinct from human nature, which includes the possibility of either realization. And some systems invite certain types of realization: authoritarian systems invite barbary, systems that give status in exchange for contribution reward giving.
It's not selfless in the dualistic way that is present in judeo-christian (well, mostly christian) morality. The gift economy can't be seen as either selfless or selfish- more like enlightened self-interest. Contribute to a good OSS project, see your ability to charge high consulting fees go up. Neither selfless, nor selfish (or maybe both?)
Ah, there you have it: as far as IP goes, we do have nearly unlimited production capacity. Economists had to come up with the idea of augmenting returns; it's so damned cheap to copy bits that marginal costs keep decreasing. You can't deprive the other guy by making a copy (well, unless you're counting on licensing...).
There's no need. We only need a system that invites better realizations, and that's something that's become possible with a new mode of production. It's a rare thing in human history to be witnesses to such a massive change. That said, I'm afraid a lot of Americans are going to be too afraid to partake in this movement because your accidental wealth has warped your vision, making you see human nature as dark as your leaders manifest it.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
That's not really necessary. For the most part, people are already prevented from acting rotten if they feel that doing so would harm their reputation. In the context of doing business, corporations act rotten if its worth their while. If enough customers have the right information, it stops being worthwhile.
Consider the prisoners' dilemma -- the best outcome for both prisoners is if they both remain silent, but they don't. Why? They lack information. If they could co-ordinate their efforts, they could produce a better outcome for themselves than if they acted independently. Economic and social systems live and die on information, and when the infrastructure delivers instant and comprehensive information to the ordinary consumer, then real social change is possible.
"It's Dot Com!"
Before you blame the corporations (oops too late), take a quick look at the article, and you'll see that the only way they are able to prevent change is through "manipulating the political process". Everyone with an Econ 101 class under their belt should know that businesses should do everything in their power to suceed in the market, which should mean work hard, if the government is doing it's job. But, surprise, surprise, it's not! So before you get pissed off at the corportations and ask the government to assume more power (which will inevitably be used illegitimately by the highest bidder) to kick them down, think a little, and ask the government to do less. Then the people decide which firms survive and which do not with their dollar votes. It's 1000000 times better than democracy!
...is some workable, "non-oppressive" alternative to the free market...
Capitalism is a great system, but what I really think the Lefties should concentrate on is not throwing the whole system out but rather tweak how it works.
Two of the characteristics that the capital system has assumed is the goal of a company which is traditionally to make money and the costs of business associated with achieving the goal.
Starting with costs, the system could be restructured towards a green economy by manipulating the costs - Gasoline costs a hell of a lot more, old-growth trees cost a lot to harvest, etc. With more ecologicaly orientated costs built into the system you would get eventually get your desired social system organized through capitalism.
The goals of a company too can be tweaked to achieve new societial effects. Individuals in a new society can easily create co-ops by organizing on the internet and having the co-ops focus on creating economic activity with goals such as creating jobs or providing free neighborhood watch functions in a local area thus having the profits returned to the community.
Or not.
Shh.
Once technology has lowered the high barrier-to-entry of multimedia distribution, i.e., once broadband gets cheap enough so that most households have it, then distributing a movie can be done over the p2p networks. As for making movies, digital cameras are getting super cheap. And then there is video editing software for next to nothing.
Heck, I am even making a short movie right now. Look for it on kazaa in a month or so....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
> AT&T's monopoly was dismembered.
And the ILEC's today cumulatively have more power than AT&T ever did, extending beyond POTS into cellular and broadband. All made possible by cash flow from their POTS monopoly.
> Standard Oil's monopoly was dismembered.
But the dismembered portions were all owned by the same people who owned Standard Oil. What's more, the dismembered portions together made more money that the original Standard Oil.
Identity decentralization != Financial decentralization.
> Labor unions were established.
Talked to the pilots' union at Delta recently? How about United Airlines? Their pensions are not looking too good -- coming soon to a union near you.
> The weekend was created.
Are you classified as a salaried technology professional? Then your hours do not qualify for overtime. In fact, they may not qualify for time, depending on your employer.
Americans in unions are very interested in excercising their political power, what's left of it. But don't stay up late waiting for your 401K to lobby Washington for your children's future.
Too the editor...
There's been an assumption that since communism failed,
When did communism fail ?
It was never implemented..
definition communism: Theory of political and economic development proposed by Karl Marx. In Marxist theory, "communism" denotes the final stage of human historical development in which the people rule both politically (compare: democracy) and economically (contrast: capitalism).
Please point me to a country that was/is run
by the people
mmm... Russia ? Umm no, Anyone who reads up on russian history, will know that what was implemented by lenin after the civil war wasn't communism... It was State Capitalism ( the state owned everything)
mmm... I know North Korea
Ow yeah how about China? sorry.. ( State Capitalism)
Dictators and State Captialism =! Communism.
All US presidents have been "Christians", the current incumbent being one of the more outspoken ones.
Actually, that's not true. The "Founding Fathers", such as Washington, Jefferson, etc. were most likely Deists, if they even considered themselves as following a religion. Of course, the current Christian revisionist historians will swear up and down that "America was founded on Christianity", but it isn't true.
The abysmal failure of communism should be seen only as an abysmal failure of authoritarian government and not much more, certainly not as a success for the democratic capitalist system. The success (or failure) of the US capitalist system should be measured by it's own merits. This I think is where many Americans become confused. If the only metric used to determine the success of the US system is wealth and the exchange of wealth then American is the most successful nation on earth. But there is a lot more to life than wealth.
Consider the adult literacy rate, a crucial component to a true democracy. The US has a lower adult literacy rate (~97%) than all of northern Europe (100%).
Consider freedom of the press, another critical component of a democracy. Here to the US is ranked 17th again behind most of northern Europe.
The same with violent crime, murder, private & public debt and pollution output.
I'm a naturalized US citizen, and in the years that I have lived in the US, I have witnessed a slow erosion of many of the things that lured my parents to move to the US to begin with. Now I've moved back to the EU I've found that all governments could stand for a lot of improvement and no society really is significantly better than others but rather different.
So I guess it's a matter of finding a society to live in who faults don't totally offend you.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Thats nothing, Americans are also stupid enough to pay a lot for bottled liquid water too, the same stuff they can get from their kitchen tap real cheap.
No, I'm *not* joking, unfortunately, because its true, and I'm an American too.... one who is often embarrassed by his fellow citizens' irrational behavior.
Actually, that's not true. The "Founding Fathers", such as Washington, Jefferson, etc. were Christians, even if they frowned upon some aspects of organized religion at at the time. Of course, the current atheist revisionist historians will swear up and down that "America wasn't founded on Christianity", but it isn't true
The problem in our capitalist economic system is that we are all longing for economic growth. But it is impossible to achieve this forever, because everything is finite. Another problem is the growing inequality that is happening in all capitalist societies. The richer become richer, the poorer become poorer.
So a new Social Revolution should aim at new technologies for energy, like eg solar energy, in order to become independent from oil an coal (also to avoid an ecological collapse) and it should develop an economic system which does not need permanent economic growth, and it has to be a fair system, where poor people have a chance to develop.
It was good right up to that last bit. He managed to shake the communism/capitalism black&white thing, but he's still got this "end-of-the-world = U.S. falling behind" problem.
The world is round. The U.S. is behind the rest of the world once a day -- at local midnight. At local noon, it's in front. The rest of the time it's either moving to the front or to the back. Why do so many otherwise smart people fail to realize this?
For books or music, this would result in the better the music, the faster it would be free and the easier it would reach people.
For what it's worth, it seems like from my studies and from visiting Russia, tha the soviet architects missed this fundamental point too. Only Gorbachev seemed to realize the importance of establishing a society of quality persons, but his efforts to ban vodka, etc, did not come to much.
Gorbachev was NOT the man who tried to ban vodka this was idea of another man - Egor Ligachev ( the ideologist of communism that time) - the one who harshly critisesed Eltsin and overall was and old minded communist and opponent of Gorbatchev. It is also untrue that only Gorbachev realized the importance a society of quality persons. USSR always tried to build more quality pepple but due to means it used it very offen failed. as for example there were no enought pay for talented engineers they got just 10 percents more than complete loosers who were sitting around in offices. So there were always means to stagnate motivativation of people. And what actually Gorbatchev attempted to find a way to motivate talented people. But he made it so badly... he was not really a leader which was needed to made changes.
I could agree with danila in 60s and 70s USSR had the one of the best education system yet it failed to modernise. Though there were attempts -but they failed it is just due to inherited problem - no competition - the top soviet leaders became old men - ALL of them. And they just were no able to control the country on somewhat reliable way. No devise ways to find new motivations to people as old ones started not to work.The 'zastoi' or laying off (stagnationg of) all social process was a reality. Still giving a good diagnosis Gorabachev made afwul thing destroing USSR by wrong steps.
But here is the point - he was just fomally educated man. He for example spoke broken russian (in a dialect which caused laught of most population) , he invented one 'idea' after another and NO one of his ideas looked to be working as they were not thought to the end. That is why Eltsin later won. There were too much wording from Gorbatchev - and no real deeds. Partly his failures were just because entire top managment were old men with their thoughs dated by 50s. But partly because the top managers in country were good to speak but not good to think
but what I agree
I say, create decent people who value things for their own sake, and economic success will follow. education is important.But look around. Those children who have internal potential to wonder the world HAVE now means - wikipedia, slashdot etc - there were nothing like that just few years ago. They could learn MORE, faster. And having more knowledge they have more influence.
And this is a woderful process. I'm not sure if you are aware of Ivan Illich ( search google)thoughts that people learn mostly from other people. Partly I agree. We learn from good people.
Just my own example. My parents lost their parents in WWII - they got not so great education and could not help me much. The school in late 80s in USSR was not a place where one could wonder the world. It already had signs of stagnation and tendency to be army like organisation. But there were guys around who pointed to books, to encyclopedias etc. And :) this helped to me to become quite educated.
At least I self studied english and very proud of that.
So really - more means to exchange information such as wikipedia,different other wiki pages, forums etc would result that more people would help to more other people to get 'ignition' to wonder the world. So providing impulse to become decent people who value things to some others is your own interest and is interest of many decent people. And there are means. slashdot for example :)
So it is in every one own hands - HELP others to start to value things - and them to promote it further. There are means - it is just everyone own will if to help others to start value things or not.
And you are right, too. The body recognizes that it suddenly went cold inside and reacts with producing more heat. Not the thing you want when it's hot in the first place
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
"Will the advent of [A] give rise to a new [B] which displays emergent properties of [C]?"
Now make those all important calls to Stewart Brand's Global Business Network and the Foresight Institute. Beg John Brockman to slip something onto edge.org. Tap Esther Dyson and ask her to bring it up at the next Santa Fe Institute board meeting. One of these will provide the backing for the seed conference.
Now call up one of the youngsters you've been grooming, like Cory Doctorow, who will get very excited about this, without raising any awkward questions. The "memes" will then spread: and anyone who doubts that the political economy hasn't changed as if by magic can be dismissed very simply: they simply Don't Get It!
With that, you should be set up for two or three years of modestly lucrative consultancy - and then it's time to do it all over again. Rinse and repeat.
So you went to England and expected things to be just like they are in FLORIDA? "lots of ice, fill the damned thing up with ice if you have to" --how could they? In hot semitropical american florida, there are these things called Ice Machines that produce tons of ice each day. In England, the machine that produces the ice is called a fridge, and they take a cube out of the tray. Or two.
Plus they have ideas of the Correct way to do things. They know how to serve their idea of whatever drink it is you ordered, and it doesn't include the filthy american habit of dumping a bunch of useless ice in there. For example, I drink scotch neat (that is, without ice, soda, water or whatever) and have the damndest time getting unpolluted whisky in cheap bars where every yahoo wants ice. But in the expensive bars it's fine but of course, expensive.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
How can you expect 'the masses' to know the intricacies of such things if they dont have the time to put towards understanding them because they have to work 40-60 hour work weeks with a family just to feed themselves, put a roof over their head and put junior through college?
The fact that a problem is difficult to solve does not mean that the problem poses no threat.
I agree that the global environment is, on the whole, learning-hostile. That said, we are not making a serious effort to educate the next generation, which is presently idling away in school buildings anyway. The situation is not helped by the fact that many organizations have a vested interest in keeping the masses ignorant.
It is hardly necessary for any voter to become an expert on every subject. Simply by paying attention and reading a little bit (from reasonably unbiased sources) on a daily basis, a person can continually develop a basic level of knowledge and intelligence about his or her universe. This becomes much easier if learning skills are developed during childhood. It is important that we make sure that people have the time to do this, and it is important that people are motivated to do this.
The complexity of the decisions we have to make is managable if we are willing, as a country and species, to manage it. The intelligence we are applying to global problems now is so low that a small increase in applied intelligence would yield disproportionately high gains.
If the greater part of humanity is simply, by nature, unwilling or incapable of developing a basic working knowledge of its universe, then that is a serious flaw in the human design. See my sig below.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.