Overcoming the Addictive Tendencies of Fixating on the Problem Matrix
We cannot effectively talk of global solutions until we are practicing them at the local level in our backyards and communities. I think there is a simple basic common sense logic to this that resonates with most people, particularly those in the mainstream
Right now I still have to ask: where is my community? It is scattered across the globe. This is not necessary bad but we must have global as well as local communities, to complete the whole and manifest that sacred loop that empowers us as change agents for global transformation. Progressives speak so much but complete so little, is because the movemetn still revolves around a leadership that is very much living in the pain of the past. Much of the progressive community seems to define itself primarily by what it stands against and does not seems to want to see how ineffective this strategy is in winning over mainstream America.
Our notion of community will continue to be constrained as long as we exist within a built environment that is defined and dominated by the dominant paradigm. This is not to say that we are not capable of doing great things within constraining environments but I think the suburban sprawl and consumerism that most Americans now live and define themselves by is constraining to the human spirit and to the realization of full human potential. And this is why if you see economic growth not as an ends to itself but as a means to an ends of improving the overall human condition and quality of life then our overall social RIO on economic growth is not only low it is actually in the negative.
For each unit of economic value created, we are degrading the ecological and socially commons not at an incremental but an exponential rate. So things will come to a head very soon. We could talk about this until we were blue in the face and specify and quantify every little nook and crany of the dysfunctional system we live in but it would not get us an inch further to what we want in life.
Instead let us imagine the incredible potential of humanity if there was a shift in how we humans spend our energy and that more resources was spent creating a sustainable economy that was a positive and life affirming force for humanity and that less energy was put into talking about all that is wrong with the world. This is the tipping point that we are striving for when we talk about reaching critical mass in a global movement for social transformation and sustainable development. We need to be well-informed about the problem but not allow ourselves to be defined by it.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Thursday, August 26, 2004
I have heard a lot of talk of pros and cons about the pressing issues of progressive politics and I am paying less and less attention because it is just getting old to my ears. Instead of judging mainstream people for thinking the way they do, it is better to understand them. It is understandable to want to escape through media, consumables and other media, and by obsessing with social status because we are taught to see the struggles associated with the human condition as depressing and dismal.
Another issue is the way we seek to solve the problems of the human condition. Politics is not reflective of serious and geninine desire of those who really control the political process to change things. Within this dynamic what keeps politics interesting, exciting and most stimulating is sensationalism. We cannot blame people for fleeing serious discussions about politics (at least I don’t), when so much of the discussion is so far removed from any obvious relavance in terms of the immediate issues of their lives that they face on an everyday basis. As corporations and institutions have become more centralized, the power of the common people to impact politics and the social dynamic has declined. From the mindset of Joe Six-Pack nothing ever changes and so what is the point in trying to change the system?
The continued irrelevance of the green party is its own arrogance and blindness to the diversity of the progressive movement and to the larger perspectives of mainstream society. There is a proclivity to talk about the problem rather than to see the many ecological designers, socially conscious people and innovative businesspeople that are working towards solutions. The ecological cassandras--the die-off and peak oil people--have their purpose but they are so obsessed about these issues that their ideology becomes unhealthy and ineffective to truly looking at solutions. In the extreme it becomes more the problem than the solution.
If there are fifty million people in America (according to demographer Paul Ray) who are sympathetic to green values, then why are they not voting green? Why is green biz not more influential than it is today? Why hasn't sustainable development taken off?
Newtonian Politics
The term Newtonian Politics refers to the linkage between the overall patriarchal paradigm that drives our society and the political. It also makes the connection between the assumptions of the founding modernists and the dehumanizing and ecologically destructive aspects of modern technology and the systems that have evolved to uphold that system’s values. Sustainability therefore must involve a change in the mindset. I constantly hear of how people hate Bush. I see more and more people consumed by hate and resentment of those who run our society. To me that is simply a rehashing of the same mindset that created that system and its incompetent clique of leaders. More radically I see the dialectical necessity of Bush within the larger context of history (and I feel the same way about Hitler).
Progressives should know better than to see leaders in isolation of historical events. Bush represents the rising extremism (the current system metaphorically has its back to the wall) that is embedded in the American system and its need to dominate people and resources to sustain the greed of a few, keeping a grossly unsustainable system going. This is not to say that I do not see the need to replace him of course, but I understand that any replacement will face a tough time creating real changes unless a significant number of people are mobilized not simply to protest as political activist but in terms of a comprehensive change in how they live their lives. Until progressives develop a proactive strategy to challenge the present discordance that is enveloping our world, events will continue to spiral downward and we will have to content with characters much worse than Bush and with significant public support.
Grassroots Economy
We cannot effectively talk of national or global solutions until we are practicing them at the local level in our backyards and communities. I think there is a simple basic common sense logic to this that resonates with most people, particularly those in the mainstream. Right now I still have to ask: where is my community? It is scattered across the globe and much of it is internet based. This is not necessary bad but we must have global as well as local communities, to complete the whole and manifest that sacred loop that empowers us as change agents for global transformation.
Progressives speak so much but complete so little on a tangible and practical level because the movement still revolves around a leadership that is very much living in the pain of the past and is more about theory than practice. Possibly this is because it is so much based on academic ivory tower intellectualism. Much of the progressive community seems to define itself primarily by what it stands against and does not seems to want to see how ineffective this strategy is in winning over mainstream America.
The real issue is that we are constrained by our built environments. As long as we exist within built environments that are defined and dominated by the dominant paradigm of sprawl, consumerism and commercialism, we can expect little resolution of these problems that so bother us as progressives. This is not to say that we are not capable of doing great things within constraining environments but that suburban sprawl and consumerism that most Americans now live and define themselves by is constraining to the human spirit and to the realization of full human potential. And this is why if you see economic growth not as an ends to itself but as a means to an ends of improving the overall human condition and quality of life then our overall social RIO on economic growth is not only low it is actually in the negative.
The cassandras are right for each unit of economic value created, we are degrading the ecological and socially commons not at an incremental but an exponential rate. So things will come to a head very soon. We could talk about this until we were blue in the face and specify and quantify every little nook and cranny of the dysfunctional system we live in but it would not get us inch further to what we want in life.
Let us imagine the incredible potential of humanity if there was a shift in how we humans spend our energy and that more resources was spent creating a sustainable economy that was a positive and life affirming force for humanity and that less energy was put into talking about all that is wrong with the world. This is the tipping point that we are striving for when we talk about reaching critical mass in a global movement for social transformation and sustainable development. We need to be well informed about the problem but not allow ourselves to be defined by it.
Another issue is the way we seek to solve the problems of the human condition. Politics is not reflective of serious and geninine desire of those who really control the political process to change things. Within this dynamic what keeps politics interesting, exciting and most stimulating is sensationalism. We cannot blame people for fleeing serious discussions about politics (at least I don’t), when so much of the discussion is so far removed from any obvious relavance in terms of the immediate issues of their lives that they face on an everyday basis. As corporations and institutions have become more centralized, the power of the common people to impact politics and the social dynamic has declined. From the mindset of Joe Six-Pack nothing ever changes and so what is the point in trying to change the system?
The continued irrelevance of the green party is its own arrogance and blindness to the diversity of the progressive movement and to the larger perspectives of mainstream society. There is a proclivity to talk about the problem rather than to see the many ecological designers, socially conscious people and innovative businesspeople that are working towards solutions. The ecological cassandras--the die-off and peak oil people--have their purpose but they are so obsessed about these issues that their ideology becomes unhealthy and ineffective to truly looking at solutions. In the extreme it becomes more the problem than the solution.
If there are fifty million people in America (according to demographer Paul Ray) who are sympathetic to green values, then why are they not voting green? Why is green biz not more influential than it is today? Why hasn't sustainable development taken off?
Newtonian Politics
The term Newtonian Politics refers to the linkage between the overall patriarchal paradigm that drives our society and the political. It also makes the connection between the assumptions of the founding modernists and the dehumanizing and ecologically destructive aspects of modern technology and the systems that have evolved to uphold that system’s values. Sustainability therefore must involve a change in the mindset. I constantly hear of how people hate Bush. I see more and more people consumed by hate and resentment of those who run our society. To me that is simply a rehashing of the same mindset that created that system and its incompetent clique of leaders. More radically I see the dialectical necessity of Bush within the larger context of history (and I feel the same way about Hitler).
Progressives should know better than to see leaders in isolation of historical events. Bush represents the rising extremism (the current system metaphorically has its back to the wall) that is embedded in the American system and its need to dominate people and resources to sustain the greed of a few, keeping a grossly unsustainable system going. This is not to say that I do not see the need to replace him of course, but I understand that any replacement will face a tough time creating real changes unless a significant number of people are mobilized not simply to protest as political activist but in terms of a comprehensive change in how they live their lives. Until progressives develop a proactive strategy to challenge the present discordance that is enveloping our world, events will continue to spiral downward and we will have to content with characters much worse than Bush and with significant public support.
Grassroots Economy
We cannot effectively talk of national or global solutions until we are practicing them at the local level in our backyards and communities. I think there is a simple basic common sense logic to this that resonates with most people, particularly those in the mainstream. Right now I still have to ask: where is my community? It is scattered across the globe and much of it is internet based. This is not necessary bad but we must have global as well as local communities, to complete the whole and manifest that sacred loop that empowers us as change agents for global transformation.
Progressives speak so much but complete so little on a tangible and practical level because the movement still revolves around a leadership that is very much living in the pain of the past and is more about theory than practice. Possibly this is because it is so much based on academic ivory tower intellectualism. Much of the progressive community seems to define itself primarily by what it stands against and does not seems to want to see how ineffective this strategy is in winning over mainstream America.
The real issue is that we are constrained by our built environments. As long as we exist within built environments that are defined and dominated by the dominant paradigm of sprawl, consumerism and commercialism, we can expect little resolution of these problems that so bother us as progressives. This is not to say that we are not capable of doing great things within constraining environments but that suburban sprawl and consumerism that most Americans now live and define themselves by is constraining to the human spirit and to the realization of full human potential. And this is why if you see economic growth not as an ends to itself but as a means to an ends of improving the overall human condition and quality of life then our overall social RIO on economic growth is not only low it is actually in the negative.
The cassandras are right for each unit of economic value created, we are degrading the ecological and socially commons not at an incremental but an exponential rate. So things will come to a head very soon. We could talk about this until we were blue in the face and specify and quantify every little nook and cranny of the dysfunctional system we live in but it would not get us inch further to what we want in life.
Let us imagine the incredible potential of humanity if there was a shift in how we humans spend our energy and that more resources was spent creating a sustainable economy that was a positive and life affirming force for humanity and that less energy was put into talking about all that is wrong with the world. This is the tipping point that we are striving for when we talk about reaching critical mass in a global movement for social transformation and sustainable development. We need to be well informed about the problem but not allow ourselves to be defined by it.
Monday, August 09, 2004
The opportunity of ICT to dramatically shift the fortunes of underserved communities is a major theme of the oneVillage Foundation. However, it is not something that should be considered in isolation of the many other factors that need to be considered in any authentic approach to sustainable development. We are not simp ly talking about virtual/ICT tools but the integration of those tools into a sustainable and socially just built environment centered around communities rather than large mega scale urban projects—holistic ICT. The development of the tools themselves will require a great networking effort an effort that will involve many groups. To make ICT technology work we have to improve the quality of the user experience as well as their effectiveness but we ourselves need a more effective set of tools to create this Holistic ICT platform.
We are developing this Holistic ICT platform to promote and integrate the kind of tools being developed by technologists with all the other components creating sustainable communities and maximizing the replication of these systems throughout the world. The reason for this is probably clear to most of you: the ecological as well as the socioeconomic window for change is short and growing shorter. There is an understandable sense of urgency among us, but we must however remain patient and not be overcome with anxiety despite the great challenges we face collectively as a species. We need to ask ourselves honestly…what are the blockages…what is holding us back and keeping us from our full potential as innovators and designers of a new sustainable and socially just global system of doing things?
One thing I envision is a TECHNOLOGY portal to enable one stop shopping and help towards developing the right ICT solutions for each particular group user. Possibly there are already sites like this in existence. Yet obviously there is still much work to be done in this area. We need to condense our knowledge and focus on open source solutions that are not limited to those who know how to program. Open source is on the verge of dominating the server market but is still lagging in the retail markets. It is hardly a mystery as to why this is.
One of the things we talked about when Joy and I were meeting with some people who are involved with the Global Women’s Leadership Center, project here in San Jose is some of the problems with existing ICT and the Grand Canyon like divide between designers and users. We see this in every aspect of modern design and the overall dismal level of interactivity between professional and laypeople. To sum up the conventional thinking technologists are too much in love with their designs and their jargon to really create easily accessible user-friendly interfaces that empower the user instead of imprisoning him/her. Computers as they are designed today are a source of much grief and they only add to our sense of being overwhelmed by too much data. If ICT is to be a real solution not just for developing countries, but for the world, this must change. Are we up to this challenge?
One of the most important movements towards sustainability involves the redesign of the ICT sector. Sustainability is not just about solar panels and sustainable agriculture it is about how we design the systems that we rely on. Are they efficient in the use of our resources, time and energy? An efficient and highly integrated set of computer programs can make a great contribution to sustainable development by themselves by reducing the amount of time wasted on the computer and the amount energy used by the computer to do tasks.
Most modern systems in our world today are highly productive in stand-alone form, but as integrated systems, they are abysmal failures. The conventional economist/wall street driven notion of productivity because it focuses on individual technologies and not integrated systems is an inaccurate measure of the technologies themselves and their effectiveness as tools that we can use towards achieving progress in the quality of our lives. In fact conventional economic measures, in fact mask the fact that much the technology and the consumer products being developed are actually moving us in reverse in terms of both personal and collective issues relating to human development, quality of life and a sense of personal empowerment.
We are developing this Holistic ICT platform to promote and integrate the kind of tools being developed by technologists with all the other components creating sustainable communities and maximizing the replication of these systems throughout the world. The reason for this is probably clear to most of you: the ecological as well as the socioeconomic window for change is short and growing shorter. There is an understandable sense of urgency among us, but we must however remain patient and not be overcome with anxiety despite the great challenges we face collectively as a species. We need to ask ourselves honestly…what are the blockages…what is holding us back and keeping us from our full potential as innovators and designers of a new sustainable and socially just global system of doing things?
One thing I envision is a TECHNOLOGY portal to enable one stop shopping and help towards developing the right ICT solutions for each particular group user. Possibly there are already sites like this in existence. Yet obviously there is still much work to be done in this area. We need to condense our knowledge and focus on open source solutions that are not limited to those who know how to program. Open source is on the verge of dominating the server market but is still lagging in the retail markets. It is hardly a mystery as to why this is.
One of the things we talked about when Joy and I were meeting with some people who are involved with the Global Women’s Leadership Center, project here in San Jose is some of the problems with existing ICT and the Grand Canyon like divide between designers and users. We see this in every aspect of modern design and the overall dismal level of interactivity between professional and laypeople. To sum up the conventional thinking technologists are too much in love with their designs and their jargon to really create easily accessible user-friendly interfaces that empower the user instead of imprisoning him/her. Computers as they are designed today are a source of much grief and they only add to our sense of being overwhelmed by too much data. If ICT is to be a real solution not just for developing countries, but for the world, this must change. Are we up to this challenge?
One of the most important movements towards sustainability involves the redesign of the ICT sector. Sustainability is not just about solar panels and sustainable agriculture it is about how we design the systems that we rely on. Are they efficient in the use of our resources, time and energy? An efficient and highly integrated set of computer programs can make a great contribution to sustainable development by themselves by reducing the amount of time wasted on the computer and the amount energy used by the computer to do tasks.
Most modern systems in our world today are highly productive in stand-alone form, but as integrated systems, they are abysmal failures. The conventional economist/wall street driven notion of productivity because it focuses on individual technologies and not integrated systems is an inaccurate measure of the technologies themselves and their effectiveness as tools that we can use towards achieving progress in the quality of our lives. In fact conventional economic measures, in fact mask the fact that much the technology and the consumer products being developed are actually moving us in reverse in terms of both personal and collective issues relating to human development, quality of life and a sense of personal empowerment.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Technology with Intention: Understanding Wisdom Technologies
Technologies are simply building blocks, however the intentions of the people who create them can lead to unintentional as well as intentional biases towards supporting certain approaches and strategies. It is technology without intention that makes technology appear for so many to be more of a problem than a solution. However technologies are simply tools for human evolution or more pessimistically devolution. How we use technologies relates to the how we think about ourselves and the world around us. If we develop a way to use technology with wisdom then we can truly develop technologies that offer practical solutions to social problems and needs, while offering new opportunities for humanity to evolve and experience life not only on this planet but within the larger universe of which we are a part.
As we enter into the information age, increasingly technology has taken a cut and paste feel. We are more able to take information and reconfigure it for our needs. These trends in technological development are very important to understand, because of their potential to disrupt existing predictable economic patterns. Disruptive technologies are those which disrupt the business status quo. What has been missing has been a way to concretize and interweave these innovations into a vast network; a social tapestry that could form a cohesive whole in terms of powering an economic alternative to the prevailing socioeconomic system to create a thriving bottom up economy.
C.K. Prahalad, one of the world’s leading strategists, has a new book called The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.
Human scale "wisdom" technologies have the potential to precipitate a shift away from larger and larger economies of scale—away from ever larger levels of national and now centralization and concentration of power. We now have the technologies, the building blocks to determine our own reality, rather than relying on those in established power structures to rule in what they claim to be our best interests. What is missing is the inspiration and the strategy from which to effectively implement these technologies at the grass roots.
Ultimately though it is up to us to organize effectively to meet the challenges of the world today. The financial analyst Robert Loest says that your worldview is like the hull of a ship in a vast sea of information. If we do not develop a process of organizing the information that flows in every greater quantities into our lives, we become overwhelmed. So an important aspect of any effective movement towards social change must involve a filtering process by which we selectively cut and paste information into a informational mosaic that suits our aspirations in life.
Technologies are simply building blocks, however the intentions of the people who create them can lead to unintentional as well as intentional biases towards supporting certain approaches and strategies. It is technology without intention that makes technology appear for so many to be more of a problem than a solution. However technologies are simply tools for human evolution or more pessimistically devolution. How we use technologies relates to the how we think about ourselves and the world around us. If we develop a way to use technology with wisdom then we can truly develop technologies that offer practical solutions to social problems and needs, while offering new opportunities for humanity to evolve and experience life not only on this planet but within the larger universe of which we are a part.
As we enter into the information age, increasingly technology has taken a cut and paste feel. We are more able to take information and reconfigure it for our needs. These trends in technological development are very important to understand, because of their potential to disrupt existing predictable economic patterns. Disruptive technologies are those which disrupt the business status quo. What has been missing has been a way to concretize and interweave these innovations into a vast network; a social tapestry that could form a cohesive whole in terms of powering an economic alternative to the prevailing socioeconomic system to create a thriving bottom up economy.
C.K. Prahalad, one of the world’s leading strategists, has a new book called The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.
Human scale "wisdom" technologies have the potential to precipitate a shift away from larger and larger economies of scale—away from ever larger levels of national and now centralization and concentration of power. We now have the technologies, the building blocks to determine our own reality, rather than relying on those in established power structures to rule in what they claim to be our best interests. What is missing is the inspiration and the strategy from which to effectively implement these technologies at the grass roots.
Ultimately though it is up to us to organize effectively to meet the challenges of the world today. The financial analyst Robert Loest says that your worldview is like the hull of a ship in a vast sea of information. If we do not develop a process of organizing the information that flows in every greater quantities into our lives, we become overwhelmed. So an important aspect of any effective movement towards social change must involve a filtering process by which we selectively cut and paste information into a informational mosaic that suits our aspirations in life.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
A formative experience for me was the several year tour of duty at Arcosanti. This was an opportunity to participate in a unique experiment that sees itself as an alternative to the American dream centered around materialism, suburban sprawl and conspicious consumerism. While there I met many interesting people and events. One such event was the 3rd conference in the ongoing Paraodox conference series. It that took place in september of 2001.
The Paradox conferences sprang from Paolo Soleri's thesis: The Six Paradoxes of the Computer Revolution. Ron Anastasia and Michael Gosney-both involved in the west coast cybernetic culture, worked with Paolo to develop the conferences, as a way to promote Soleri's ideas about Arcology to the dot.com crowd. Soleri in his Paradox diabribes warns of the potential dilemmas of ICT to create what he calls the "Global Hermitage."
Michael has developed a "evolutionary Arcology approach" that is focused on three main components: a continuation of the Paradox series of conferences, the development of the Green Community Network and finally the creation of a prototype Arcology themed project in the Bay Area named Califia that is still in the concept state of development. The unifying umbrella for this "evolution of Solerian thought" is the Green Century Institute which will ultimately serve as not only a think tank but an "action tank" to mobilize and organize what Paul Ray refers to as cultural creatives. An ongoing monthly series the Green Century Salon is an attempt to build community in the Bay Area around the themes of sustainability creativity and critical thinking.
Ron has continued to research alternative communities such as Auroville which is located in south India and Damanhur in northern Italy. In constrast to Arcosanti both are spiritual communities and have also been able to develop significantly larger populations. Ron recently did a presentation of his experiences at a Green Century Salon that I attended a few months back. He did not sugarcoat his experiences as he mentioned the pros and cons of each place. He did seem to think that Auroville was the most advanced in terms of offering a real sustainable model for humanity.
According to Michael Gosney the themes of the conferences are:
Libby Hubbard (aka Doctress Neutopia) spent over a year working on the Paradox Program at Arcosanti. Her work has been important in developing a critical perspective of Arcosanti and Arcology which I believe is necessary for the continued evolution of Arcology into an viable alternative to existing development models. Neutopia helped to craft the writing below which is an except of a larger document that we submitted to Communities Magazine in relation to their featured topic which during that issue was education (Daniel Greenberg of Sirius Community was the guest editor). Although our submission was not accepted it was a good exercise in exploring some of the Paradoxes of not only technology and modern civilization but Arcosanti and Arcology.
The Global Hermitage is a phrase Soleri uses to express a concern about the misuse of computer technologies and the Internet. Soleri feels that as people become more attached to virtual life they are separating from real life. There is a compelling rationale for making community values and locally based culture obsolete. The lifestyles that revolve around locally based cultures tend to discourage conspicious consumption and materialism while disregarding the relentless need to increase productivity by any means necessary. The desire of many within the counterculture and the voluntary simplicity movement to move beyond conventional mainstream assumptions about success and progress and simplify their lives is very tied together with the desire towards localization and increased local autonomy as an alternative to the current corporatist model of economic social and political centralization. Within the modern reality, the idea of a lifelong commitment to community is neither sustained nor supported by the prevailing systems of the mainstream society.
The function of Paradox is not just to express the concern that people are using technology to isolate themselves rather than to build community but to actually start discussing the possibility of balancing technology with indigenous culture.
While suburbanization is presently thriving and has been a major driver in the upward propulsion of the markets over the last 20 or so years such development is rapidly reaching its apex. The public though is still oblivious to the fact that existing development practices are socially or environmentally sustainable and that radical and fundamental change is necessary. An alternative has to emerge, since the world cannot sustain the present development paradigm as espoused by the American corporate establishment.
The existing suburban regions of urban America are going to have to be redesigned and redeveloped because quite simply they are not suitable or even for that matter constructed for long-term human habitation.
Those who are able to develop the vision as well as the know-how to do construct more sustainable human habitats, rapidly and efficiently redesign these environmentally destructive and socially dysfunctional systems, will be in high demand in the coming years. As demand for more socially and environmentally responsible planning design and construction increases those emerging businesses will allow a significant amount of wealth to be shifted from existing businesses that live off of dysfunctional psycho-social interactions in the conventional economy to more effective and socially and ecologically conscious investments in the alternative community. Encouraging the creation of densely populated human habitats, where consumerism and the auto are discouraged, and where creativity, spirituality, political participation and intellectual discourse is central to reversing social, economic and environmental trends that undermine the integrity of human and natural systems.
The purpose of Paradox is to create a balance between real life and virtual reality. As post-modern civilization becomes increasingly complex, we need to discover new models to manage this complexity, keeping human beings relevant and creative within this emerging global network.
The key to understanding this concept of the Global Hermitage is the realization that the community values that previously sustained our identity within the culture of the pre-modern world, have been made obsolete. Within the modern reality, the idea of a lifelong or long term commitment to community is neither sustained nor supported by the prevailing systems of the mainstream society. It is important for us as educators and teachers of a more sustainable and holistic world view, to develop community based ways of overcoming the social dysfunction that materializes from the present hyper-consumerist system. Larry Kaplowitz for the Lost Valley Educational Center writes, "The biggest lesson we've learned over the last few years is that sustainable community must have at its foundation sustainable relationships--relationships that give us more than they take from us; that are a continual source of energy; and which support us in becoming fully ourselves ("Living Naka-ima at Lost Valley" Communities Magazine Fall 99 P.22)."
Technology although necessary to modernization and further human development, is creating structures of complexity that are distancing people from each other, while at the same time, it creates the illusion that we are closer together. We have in the process of modernization, built an architecture where we exist in isolation of each other, so it is hardly surprising that we live increasingly fragmented lives. The reality that we are inter-connected and interdependent flows from the essence of existence, however, embedded within the dysfunctional political geography of our rapidly globalizing commercial culture, is the need to increase the distance within the human to human and human to planet relationships. Not only do we need to think in terms of local community, but we have evolved into needing a planetary consciousness which goes beyond the inhuman, technologically driven society with its relentless need to increase productivity and weapons by any means necessary. Cyberspace can potentially enable us to more clearly envision and articulate the dismal architecture of the present system, while also seeking to visualize and implement the lean alternative, a grand architecture (Arcosanti is just one idea among many alternatives to the present system) that is encapsulated within the ecological/sustainable economics.
The Paradox conferences sprang from Paolo Soleri's thesis: The Six Paradoxes of the Computer Revolution. Ron Anastasia and Michael Gosney-both involved in the west coast cybernetic culture, worked with Paolo to develop the conferences, as a way to promote Soleri's ideas about Arcology to the dot.com crowd. Soleri in his Paradox diabribes warns of the potential dilemmas of ICT to create what he calls the "Global Hermitage."
Michael has developed a "evolutionary Arcology approach" that is focused on three main components: a continuation of the Paradox series of conferences, the development of the Green Community Network and finally the creation of a prototype Arcology themed project in the Bay Area named Califia that is still in the concept state of development. The unifying umbrella for this "evolution of Solerian thought" is the Green Century Institute which will ultimately serve as not only a think tank but an "action tank" to mobilize and organize what Paul Ray refers to as cultural creatives. An ongoing monthly series the Green Century Salon is an attempt to build community in the Bay Area around the themes of sustainability creativity and critical thinking.
Ron has continued to research alternative communities such as Auroville which is located in south India and Damanhur in northern Italy. In constrast to Arcosanti both are spiritual communities and have also been able to develop significantly larger populations. Ron recently did a presentation of his experiences at a Green Century Salon that I attended a few months back. He did not sugarcoat his experiences as he mentioned the pros and cons of each place. He did seem to think that Auroville was the most advanced in terms of offering a real sustainable model for humanity.
According to Michael Gosney the themes of the conferences are:
* Paradox Project - neomonastic internship program at Arcosanti - starts in 1998
* Cross-disciplinary Philosophical Discourse vs. the Corporate Cyber-elite
* Cyberspace/Cityspace
* Morphogenetic origins of digital media
* Carbon and Silicon - evolutionary symbiosis?
* Electronic Media (the basic plumbing), Cyberspace (the design of the human metamind), and the Noosphere (the emergent "cosmic" holon)
* Hypermedia-enabled Education
Proposition:
Understanding our relationship to the planetary organism - on magnetic, ecological, biological/ chemical, and noetic levels - would seem to be essential for the fully conscious and conscientious development of a human/Gaian "metamind." The intelligent design of the cyberspace interface/ network would ideally incorporate the proven systems and techniques of the natural world, such as:
* miniaturization for increased complexity/richness
* distributed processing
* fractal memory
* fuzzy logic
* pattern recognition
* holonomic networks
* redundancy, redundancy, redundancy
The full realization of the elegant underpinnings of the metamind might not be best left solely in the hands of the existing cyber-elite - the digerati (the powerhouses of the industry and culture) and the cybernauts (the hands-on builders and early inhabitants of cyberspace). A broader vision, more encompassing dialogue and cross-disciplinary cooperation for this great evolutionary work is needed.
Libby Hubbard (aka Doctress Neutopia) spent over a year working on the Paradox Program at Arcosanti. Her work has been important in developing a critical perspective of Arcosanti and Arcology which I believe is necessary for the continued evolution of Arcology into an viable alternative to existing development models. Neutopia helped to craft the writing below which is an except of a larger document that we submitted to Communities Magazine in relation to their featured topic which during that issue was education (Daniel Greenberg of Sirius Community was the guest editor). Although our submission was not accepted it was a good exercise in exploring some of the Paradoxes of not only technology and modern civilization but Arcosanti and Arcology.
The Global Hermitage is a phrase Soleri uses to express a concern about the misuse of computer technologies and the Internet. Soleri feels that as people become more attached to virtual life they are separating from real life. There is a compelling rationale for making community values and locally based culture obsolete. The lifestyles that revolve around locally based cultures tend to discourage conspicious consumption and materialism while disregarding the relentless need to increase productivity by any means necessary. The desire of many within the counterculture and the voluntary simplicity movement to move beyond conventional mainstream assumptions about success and progress and simplify their lives is very tied together with the desire towards localization and increased local autonomy as an alternative to the current corporatist model of economic social and political centralization. Within the modern reality, the idea of a lifelong commitment to community is neither sustained nor supported by the prevailing systems of the mainstream society.
The function of Paradox is not just to express the concern that people are using technology to isolate themselves rather than to build community but to actually start discussing the possibility of balancing technology with indigenous culture.
While suburbanization is presently thriving and has been a major driver in the upward propulsion of the markets over the last 20 or so years such development is rapidly reaching its apex. The public though is still oblivious to the fact that existing development practices are socially or environmentally sustainable and that radical and fundamental change is necessary. An alternative has to emerge, since the world cannot sustain the present development paradigm as espoused by the American corporate establishment.
The existing suburban regions of urban America are going to have to be redesigned and redeveloped because quite simply they are not suitable or even for that matter constructed for long-term human habitation.
Those who are able to develop the vision as well as the know-how to do construct more sustainable human habitats, rapidly and efficiently redesign these environmentally destructive and socially dysfunctional systems, will be in high demand in the coming years. As demand for more socially and environmentally responsible planning design and construction increases those emerging businesses will allow a significant amount of wealth to be shifted from existing businesses that live off of dysfunctional psycho-social interactions in the conventional economy to more effective and socially and ecologically conscious investments in the alternative community. Encouraging the creation of densely populated human habitats, where consumerism and the auto are discouraged, and where creativity, spirituality, political participation and intellectual discourse is central to reversing social, economic and environmental trends that undermine the integrity of human and natural systems.
The purpose of Paradox is to create a balance between real life and virtual reality. As post-modern civilization becomes increasingly complex, we need to discover new models to manage this complexity, keeping human beings relevant and creative within this emerging global network.
The key to understanding this concept of the Global Hermitage is the realization that the community values that previously sustained our identity within the culture of the pre-modern world, have been made obsolete. Within the modern reality, the idea of a lifelong or long term commitment to community is neither sustained nor supported by the prevailing systems of the mainstream society. It is important for us as educators and teachers of a more sustainable and holistic world view, to develop community based ways of overcoming the social dysfunction that materializes from the present hyper-consumerist system. Larry Kaplowitz for the Lost Valley Educational Center writes, "The biggest lesson we've learned over the last few years is that sustainable community must have at its foundation sustainable relationships--relationships that give us more than they take from us; that are a continual source of energy; and which support us in becoming fully ourselves ("Living Naka-ima at Lost Valley" Communities Magazine Fall 99 P.22)."
Technology although necessary to modernization and further human development, is creating structures of complexity that are distancing people from each other, while at the same time, it creates the illusion that we are closer together. We have in the process of modernization, built an architecture where we exist in isolation of each other, so it is hardly surprising that we live increasingly fragmented lives. The reality that we are inter-connected and interdependent flows from the essence of existence, however, embedded within the dysfunctional political geography of our rapidly globalizing commercial culture, is the need to increase the distance within the human to human and human to planet relationships. Not only do we need to think in terms of local community, but we have evolved into needing a planetary consciousness which goes beyond the inhuman, technologically driven society with its relentless need to increase productivity and weapons by any means necessary. Cyberspace can potentially enable us to more clearly envision and articulate the dismal architecture of the present system, while also seeking to visualize and implement the lean alternative, a grand architecture (Arcosanti is just one idea among many alternatives to the present system) that is encapsulated within the ecological/sustainable economics.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Many progressives have a firm belief that the current capitalist system of capitalism is sucking the planet dry. True enough, yet the roots of this system go way deeper than capitalism or corporations. The core of the problem revolved around the excessive human ego and the patriarchal mentality of nearly all the world's civilizations.
Capitalism works because it encourages people to produce more and to innovate, creating jobs and economic prosperity. Without these things it is difficult for us at this time to imagine how we could have social stablity. So there is an understandable obsession towards more and more growth. Capitalism however as it is currently constructed is not sustainable in any sense of the word as it functions in an exploiative and unsustainable way encouraging people that consuming more and more stuff is key to success and well being in life.
The question is whether capitalism is essentially exploiatative as Noam Chomsky and
company say--the old guard left--or whether a new transitional (such as what Paul Hawken talks about in his book Natural Capitalism) form of capitalism can emerge to help us to realize this vision of a sustainable and socially just society?
After participating in the 2003 planetwork conference I come across Chris Dent's Glacial Erratics Blog. He describes the Planetwork people as a "soft money crowd..." I assume because many of the participants are rich in ideas but have no money to implement them. This is the case with most progressive gatherings. It is important to understand the dynamic here and why it may be ineffective and dysfunctional.
What is lacking in the progressive community is a level of financial critical mass that is inclusive rather exclusive. Too many people want to do good, but cannot seem to put the pieces together so that they feel like they are a part of a larger globally linked human infrastructure for effective social change. But critical mass is not simply about money, it is about how we can develop the empowerment and to empower others through effective social networking systems. The creation of small, decentralized but highly networked human scale models of sustainable development should complement better use of information technologies.
Ahh, and where "capitalism is mistrusted and conservatives are considered an appalling subspecies...." the traditional ideological terms conservatism or liberalism have limited meaning in our world today. Francis Ford Coppola came to Arcosanti (www.arcosanti.org) and spoke at Paolo Soleri's weekly school of thought about this briefly. He said simply killing them off (those "appalling conservatives" who control our socioeconomic systems) is simply too messy (it is also not compatable with the idea of tolerance and respect for diverse perspectives and the people who express them).
We need to help those who are mired in the mainstream, (which i believe is basically conservative in that it is resistent to signficant and evolutionary social change based on deeply held fears) view of the world to see that their way of seeing the world is detrimental to their future and humanity's future. Creaively and innovatively communicate with those who defend the status quo with all their energy.
But it is not really about conservative or liberal or capitalist or anti-capitalist. The people who obsess about these things are reactionaries and they come in all the ideological colors of the spectrum. These people spend so much time talking about how evil the other side is that they have no time to think about sustainable, human scale solutions to massive global problems.
We need to better communicate with ourselves those who are supposedly on the same page. and i think that is what the people who came to Planetwork are attempting to do.
Capitalism works because it encourages people to produce more and to innovate, creating jobs and economic prosperity. Without these things it is difficult for us at this time to imagine how we could have social stablity. So there is an understandable obsession towards more and more growth. Capitalism however as it is currently constructed is not sustainable in any sense of the word as it functions in an exploiative and unsustainable way encouraging people that consuming more and more stuff is key to success and well being in life.
The question is whether capitalism is essentially exploiatative as Noam Chomsky and
company say--the old guard left--or whether a new transitional (such as what Paul Hawken talks about in his book Natural Capitalism) form of capitalism can emerge to help us to realize this vision of a sustainable and socially just society?
After participating in the 2003 planetwork conference I come across Chris Dent's Glacial Erratics Blog. He describes the Planetwork people as a "soft money crowd..." I assume because many of the participants are rich in ideas but have no money to implement them. This is the case with most progressive gatherings. It is important to understand the dynamic here and why it may be ineffective and dysfunctional.
What is lacking in the progressive community is a level of financial critical mass that is inclusive rather exclusive. Too many people want to do good, but cannot seem to put the pieces together so that they feel like they are a part of a larger globally linked human infrastructure for effective social change. But critical mass is not simply about money, it is about how we can develop the empowerment and to empower others through effective social networking systems. The creation of small, decentralized but highly networked human scale models of sustainable development should complement better use of information technologies.
Ahh, and where "capitalism is mistrusted and conservatives are considered an appalling subspecies...." the traditional ideological terms conservatism or liberalism have limited meaning in our world today. Francis Ford Coppola came to Arcosanti (www.arcosanti.org) and spoke at Paolo Soleri's weekly school of thought about this briefly. He said simply killing them off (those "appalling conservatives" who control our socioeconomic systems) is simply too messy (it is also not compatable with the idea of tolerance and respect for diverse perspectives and the people who express them).
We need to help those who are mired in the mainstream, (which i believe is basically conservative in that it is resistent to signficant and evolutionary social change based on deeply held fears) view of the world to see that their way of seeing the world is detrimental to their future and humanity's future. Creaively and innovatively communicate with those who defend the status quo with all their energy.
But it is not really about conservative or liberal or capitalist or anti-capitalist. The people who obsess about these things are reactionaries and they come in all the ideological colors of the spectrum. These people spend so much time talking about how evil the other side is that they have no time to think about sustainable, human scale solutions to massive global problems.
We need to better communicate with ourselves those who are supposedly on the same page. and i think that is what the people who came to Planetwork are attempting to do.
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
What is Silicon Valley?
Court Skinner a former executive with National Semicondutor who hangs out at South Bay Solari meetings in Palo Alto (http://www.solari.com/) says that most corporate “organizations exist independently of the place where they are and they obligated only to the limited stakeholders of the company, which the bigger the company the more rarely includes the citizens of their place.”
He says that if we expanded the notion of profit “to mean that the place where the company (or any other organization) “lives” becomes better (financially, or by any other metric) then they might have a positive impact (a positive contribution to the ROI of the place) rather than the current negative contribution. The notion of “profit” would therefore be motivated by producing “benefits to the place rather than to the management of the company and the distant shareholders.
This would mean providing:
• Interesting jobs to local residents
• Providing education that leads to rewarding work
• Designing and constructing a well thought out built environment that is both ecologically sustainable and socially and culturally nourishing.
Skinner says that if “corporations are going to pretend to be people, then they must be a part of some community. If they behave as if they are “good citizens” of that place then they too have obligations to that community just as real people do. So in terms of asking what is Silicon Valley: we have to reconsider the idea of corporate culture, corporate communities that revolve around those cultures and how they interact with real communities. This relates to the work of innovative socially conscious business pioneer Frank Dixon who spoke at the Febuary Green Century Salon about his work and his company Innovest. Dixon is working on a methodology to develop more sophisticated and rigorous screening processes for socially conscious businesses. The goal is to:
• Demonstrate that a commitment to making businesses more sustainable is a key sign of well thought business plans based on an ethical decision-making process.
• Reform the underlying structures of society that reinforce dysfunctional behaviors and interactions in the society. Systemic change is important as it is case that today the system that firms work under compels them to be unsustainable.
• Promote a global perspective as compared with the narrow perspective that now dominates. Globalization is not sustainable without a global perspective that includes considering the long term ecological and social impacts of the corporate community on the world.
Court Skinner a former executive with National Semicondutor who hangs out at South Bay Solari meetings in Palo Alto (http://www.solari.com/) says that most corporate “organizations exist independently of the place where they are and they obligated only to the limited stakeholders of the company, which the bigger the company the more rarely includes the citizens of their place.”
He says that if we expanded the notion of profit “to mean that the place where the company (or any other organization) “lives” becomes better (financially, or by any other metric) then they might have a positive impact (a positive contribution to the ROI of the place) rather than the current negative contribution. The notion of “profit” would therefore be motivated by producing “benefits to the place rather than to the management of the company and the distant shareholders.
This would mean providing:
• Interesting jobs to local residents
• Providing education that leads to rewarding work
• Designing and constructing a well thought out built environment that is both ecologically sustainable and socially and culturally nourishing.
Skinner says that if “corporations are going to pretend to be people, then they must be a part of some community. If they behave as if they are “good citizens” of that place then they too have obligations to that community just as real people do. So in terms of asking what is Silicon Valley: we have to reconsider the idea of corporate culture, corporate communities that revolve around those cultures and how they interact with real communities. This relates to the work of innovative socially conscious business pioneer Frank Dixon who spoke at the Febuary Green Century Salon about his work and his company Innovest. Dixon is working on a methodology to develop more sophisticated and rigorous screening processes for socially conscious businesses. The goal is to:
• Demonstrate that a commitment to making businesses more sustainable is a key sign of well thought business plans based on an ethical decision-making process.
• Reform the underlying structures of society that reinforce dysfunctional behaviors and interactions in the society. Systemic change is important as it is case that today the system that firms work under compels them to be unsustainable.
• Promote a global perspective as compared with the narrow perspective that now dominates. Globalization is not sustainable without a global perspective that includes considering the long term ecological and social impacts of the corporate community on the world.
Outsourcing
1 out of ten US tech jobs will be exported abroad by the end of the year. The answer to this problem, said T.J. Rodgers, CEO of San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor, isn't to require U.S. companies to stop taking advantage of offshoring to low-cost countries. Rather, he said U.S. companies and Silicon Valley engineers have to keep innovating ahead of rivals, and the United States has to invest more in education so it can produce the qualified workforce companies need. Rodgers noted that Cypress has an excellent team of chip designers in Bangalore, India, and that India is making gains because it graduates 290,000 engineers a year, vs. only 65,000 in the United States (4/1/04 Business Section of SJ Mercury News). Rodgers says however that, “Silicon Valley is the capital of the technology world and I don't see that changing. It's getting expensive and hard to do business here, and that is pushing jobs out of the valley. If Silicon Valley is to recover, we have to move up to the next step and do what others can't do.''
Rodgers noted that he once tried to fight the offshoring trend by keeping a chip test and assembly facility in the United States in the 1990s. He said that the move put Cypress Semiconductor at risk and he eventually had to lay off all the U.S. workers at the facility. Cypress now has 2,000 workers in the United States and 2,000 overseas. With test and assembly in the Philippines and two chip wafer fabrication factories in the United States, Cypress is a much more stable company, Rodgers said. “Productivity gains are important, right and moral,'' Rodgers said. “CEOs have an obligation'' to take advantage of productivity improvements, even if it includes hiring foreign workers.
1 out of ten US tech jobs will be exported abroad by the end of the year. The answer to this problem, said T.J. Rodgers, CEO of San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor, isn't to require U.S. companies to stop taking advantage of offshoring to low-cost countries. Rather, he said U.S. companies and Silicon Valley engineers have to keep innovating ahead of rivals, and the United States has to invest more in education so it can produce the qualified workforce companies need. Rodgers noted that Cypress has an excellent team of chip designers in Bangalore, India, and that India is making gains because it graduates 290,000 engineers a year, vs. only 65,000 in the United States (4/1/04 Business Section of SJ Mercury News). Rodgers says however that, “Silicon Valley is the capital of the technology world and I don't see that changing. It's getting expensive and hard to do business here, and that is pushing jobs out of the valley. If Silicon Valley is to recover, we have to move up to the next step and do what others can't do.''
Rodgers noted that he once tried to fight the offshoring trend by keeping a chip test and assembly facility in the United States in the 1990s. He said that the move put Cypress Semiconductor at risk and he eventually had to lay off all the U.S. workers at the facility. Cypress now has 2,000 workers in the United States and 2,000 overseas. With test and assembly in the Philippines and two chip wafer fabrication factories in the United States, Cypress is a much more stable company, Rodgers said. “Productivity gains are important, right and moral,'' Rodgers said. “CEOs have an obligation'' to take advantage of productivity improvements, even if it includes hiring foreign workers.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
Planetwork Update
We (the oneVillage team) attended the PlaNetwork conference last weekend and the PlaNetwork's wiki pages (150+ ) work continued to expand from the massive melding of minds. The June 5th PlaNetwork Interactive conference focused on using innovative social networking tools networking to create positive social change. One component of this was the testing of an innovative method of developing ideas. Conference goers were allowed to define the agenda before the conference using innovative social network tools like Neosociety. Tomorrow Makers' Gail Taylor and Christina Carpenter helped ensure the interactive sessions ran smoothly at PlaNetwork.
Identity Commons
The PlaNetwork working group headed by Eugene Kim of Blue Oxen and Associates has developed a single user ID platform as part of their identity commons system, which is designed to empower people to control the release of their information on the net.
Online Networking and Integration Tools
The PlaNetwork Development Team has come up with other integration tools, which we feel are potentially useful towards the construction of our portals. Living Directory developed Sergio Lub and Victor Grey enables people to link people of similar interests together on the web. Another tool allows people within Planetwork interactive to see people who are developing similar ideas in their posts on the PlaNetwork Interactive site.
EcoResearch.net
DR. Arno Scharl has recently written a book on online organization for sustainable development and has developed a complementary website ecoresearch.net. He gave a lecture on web-based research for environmentalists. With the rapidly changing dynamics of the information economy there is a rising need for data about emerging market trends and public opinion. this includes, understanding success factors for communication of ideas and information on the web in terms of promoting environmental awareness and sustainable development. What are the relationships between environmental and social problems and the various organizations that work to resolve them? Environmental science is rapidly leading to an awareness of the need to redesign the built enviornment and the means of production in the modern world. However the message is not getting through to the mainstream public. It is on this level that there is a need to represent data in enviornmental ontologies that more clearly defines trends and how we can proactively respond to them.
• Promote open and public access to environmental data relevant to grassroots sustainable economic development
• Expand environmental education and introduce new teaching concepts relevant to the changing nature of knowledge
• Online advocacy
• Data sharing
• Distributed internet computing
• Geographically referenced data
Corporate sustainability and socially conscious business is being driven not by the corporations themselves but by socially responsible consumers who through effective environmental reporting are becoming more aware that there is a need to look carefully at what we consume. Green investments are a logical outcome of this trend. However socially conscious investors are only beginning to awaken to the idea that socially conscious investing is and must be a global phenomenon. Such a movement relies on the emergence of globally networked virtual communities that build trust and credibility among the stakeholders and members promoting effective knowledge management and online collaboration such as what we are trying to develop through the oneVillage Foundation.
Brainstorming Tools
One presenter suggested that highly efficient groups write things down rather than speak them and they know when ideas do not fit together allocating time effectuvely on those that do and are relevant to their work. The key concept here is focus and direction. It is the process of evolving from the brainstorming phase to the implementation phase. One tool was discussed to help develop ideas into the coherent pattern languages that are relevant to the particular network or group.
Idea Tree is a knowledge map. This system is different than visualization tools, it is brainstorming tool. An interesting aspect of Idea Tree is that you can make comments on the relationships between nodes. It would be interesting to compare and contrast this system with the Brain software. While it may be that virtual communication is more effective than traditional forms of communication in many respects, human interaction is crucial and these tools help to maximize productivity when people do decide to meet by helping to collect and organize relevant information for meetings.
We conclude that there is not so much a need to develop new technologies, but to effectively collect innovative ideas through an open source platform that efficiently and effectively transmits information helping people to empower themselves in their lives so that they are spending more time doing what they want to do in life and less time "workin for the man."
It is not simply the software itself that is significant but the very way in which information is organized. An important aspect to social change is to focus on relationship building changing the emphasis of knowledge development away from objects and towards relationships and understanding how various component systems relate to one another and why.
Aikido Activism in 25 Words or less
At the monthly Planetwork meeting I met up with Reed Burkhart who is doing pioneering working in using satellites to video-conference. He spoke of Aikido Activism as a way to proactively rather than reactively address social problems.
Reed Burkhart also has a plan for inexpensive satellite communication, and spent many years in that industry, part of what he calls the forth paradigm in communications evolution.
While talking to Reed I met Rolf von Behrens of the Australian National Sustainability Initiative. While in SF Rolf sought to bring together Australians in the Bay Area and mobilize them toward the effective use of ICT to promote sustainability at a meeting he organized after the conference. Innovative tools for networking and bringing people together seemed to be a priority for Rolf and his organization.
Also at PlaNetwork we met Juan Maldonado, who grew up in Columbia and other Latin American countries, lives in Seattle, works in IT, and has an uncle who publishes a leading Spanish-language medical journal. Juan was asked to help create a distance learning system (continuing education) for rural doctors in Columbia.
Bridging Digital Divide Conference
Professor Raoul Weiler and Rolando Burger spoke at the conference about the Club of Rome/UNESCO sponsored Bridging Digital Divide Conference. Issues include the role of information technologies (ICT) in enhancing education, promoting sustainability and bridging the income divide. The Bridging Digital Divide Conference will take place in Spring of 2005 in Europe as a follow up event to WSIS 2004 and a precursor event to the World Summit on Information society (WSIS) November 2005 meeting at Tunis.
The Strong Angel Connection
Joy connected with John Graham who is involved with Strong Angel -- bringing military and civilian technology together for effective internet tools for difficult environments, and rigorously testing them in Hawaii very soon. John also created GeoFusion space image mapping and display technology.
We (the oneVillage team) attended the PlaNetwork conference last weekend and the PlaNetwork's wiki pages (150+ ) work continued to expand from the massive melding of minds. The June 5th PlaNetwork Interactive conference focused on using innovative social networking tools networking to create positive social change. One component of this was the testing of an innovative method of developing ideas. Conference goers were allowed to define the agenda before the conference using innovative social network tools like Neosociety. Tomorrow Makers' Gail Taylor and Christina Carpenter helped ensure the interactive sessions ran smoothly at PlaNetwork.
Identity Commons
The PlaNetwork working group headed by Eugene Kim of Blue Oxen and Associates has developed a single user ID platform as part of their identity commons system, which is designed to empower people to control the release of their information on the net.
Online Networking and Integration Tools
The PlaNetwork Development Team has come up with other integration tools, which we feel are potentially useful towards the construction of our portals. Living Directory developed Sergio Lub and Victor Grey enables people to link people of similar interests together on the web. Another tool allows people within Planetwork interactive to see people who are developing similar ideas in their posts on the PlaNetwork Interactive site.
EcoResearch.net
DR. Arno Scharl has recently written a book on online organization for sustainable development and has developed a complementary website ecoresearch.net. He gave a lecture on web-based research for environmentalists. With the rapidly changing dynamics of the information economy there is a rising need for data about emerging market trends and public opinion. this includes, understanding success factors for communication of ideas and information on the web in terms of promoting environmental awareness and sustainable development. What are the relationships between environmental and social problems and the various organizations that work to resolve them? Environmental science is rapidly leading to an awareness of the need to redesign the built enviornment and the means of production in the modern world. However the message is not getting through to the mainstream public. It is on this level that there is a need to represent data in enviornmental ontologies that more clearly defines trends and how we can proactively respond to them.
• Promote open and public access to environmental data relevant to grassroots sustainable economic development
• Expand environmental education and introduce new teaching concepts relevant to the changing nature of knowledge
• Online advocacy
• Data sharing
• Distributed internet computing
• Geographically referenced data
Corporate sustainability and socially conscious business is being driven not by the corporations themselves but by socially responsible consumers who through effective environmental reporting are becoming more aware that there is a need to look carefully at what we consume. Green investments are a logical outcome of this trend. However socially conscious investors are only beginning to awaken to the idea that socially conscious investing is and must be a global phenomenon. Such a movement relies on the emergence of globally networked virtual communities that build trust and credibility among the stakeholders and members promoting effective knowledge management and online collaboration such as what we are trying to develop through the oneVillage Foundation.
Brainstorming Tools
One presenter suggested that highly efficient groups write things down rather than speak them and they know when ideas do not fit together allocating time effectuvely on those that do and are relevant to their work. The key concept here is focus and direction. It is the process of evolving from the brainstorming phase to the implementation phase. One tool was discussed to help develop ideas into the coherent pattern languages that are relevant to the particular network or group.
Idea Tree is a knowledge map. This system is different than visualization tools, it is brainstorming tool. An interesting aspect of Idea Tree is that you can make comments on the relationships between nodes. It would be interesting to compare and contrast this system with the Brain software. While it may be that virtual communication is more effective than traditional forms of communication in many respects, human interaction is crucial and these tools help to maximize productivity when people do decide to meet by helping to collect and organize relevant information for meetings.
We conclude that there is not so much a need to develop new technologies, but to effectively collect innovative ideas through an open source platform that efficiently and effectively transmits information helping people to empower themselves in their lives so that they are spending more time doing what they want to do in life and less time "workin for the man."
It is not simply the software itself that is significant but the very way in which information is organized. An important aspect to social change is to focus on relationship building changing the emphasis of knowledge development away from objects and towards relationships and understanding how various component systems relate to one another and why.
Aikido Activism in 25 Words or less
At the monthly Planetwork meeting I met up with Reed Burkhart who is doing pioneering working in using satellites to video-conference. He spoke of Aikido Activism as a way to proactively rather than reactively address social problems.
"Aikido Activism is the promotion of global community over self-promotion, using the Aikido principal of engaging an enemy's power to turn that enemy towards progress." I think the two parts of the sentence are important, 1) what the objective is, and 2) how it will be done. It's all very simple and obvious.
"The hard part -- as with anything simple and obvious that could change the world -- is revealing and gradually overcoming the traditions that oppose the advancement (which is why writing and sharing those ideas in the essay Aikido Activism is so important)."
Reed Burkhart also has a plan for inexpensive satellite communication, and spent many years in that industry, part of what he calls the forth paradigm in communications evolution.
While talking to Reed I met Rolf von Behrens of the Australian National Sustainability Initiative. While in SF Rolf sought to bring together Australians in the Bay Area and mobilize them toward the effective use of ICT to promote sustainability at a meeting he organized after the conference. Innovative tools for networking and bringing people together seemed to be a priority for Rolf and his organization.
Also at PlaNetwork we met Juan Maldonado, who grew up in Columbia and other Latin American countries, lives in Seattle, works in IT, and has an uncle who publishes a leading Spanish-language medical journal. Juan was asked to help create a distance learning system (continuing education) for rural doctors in Columbia.
Bridging Digital Divide Conference
Professor Raoul Weiler and Rolando Burger spoke at the conference about the Club of Rome/UNESCO sponsored Bridging Digital Divide Conference. Issues include the role of information technologies (ICT) in enhancing education, promoting sustainability and bridging the income divide. The Bridging Digital Divide Conference will take place in Spring of 2005 in Europe as a follow up event to WSIS 2004 and a precursor event to the World Summit on Information society (WSIS) November 2005 meeting at Tunis.
The Strong Angel Connection
Joy connected with John Graham who is involved with Strong Angel -- bringing military and civilian technology together for effective internet tools for difficult environments, and rigorously testing them in Hawaii very soon. John also created GeoFusion space image mapping and display technology.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
