Ming the Mechanic
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
Wednesday, April 9, 2003day link 
 Many to Many
picture How do we invite democracy to emerge? How does spontaneous cooperation happen? How can humanity self-organize in more useful ways? How can we make our civilization more synergetic?

I am here particularly interested in how we can use our existing or almost existing technologies to arrange our information and our means of communicating in such a manner as to invite these things to happen.

My instinct is that our society could be organized in a drastically different way, from the bottom up, in a way that will allow just about all of us to do productive work that we are happy with, and in a way that is vastly more productive as a whole. If we just knew how.

I believe our information networks could provide some core leverage in getting us there, but they aren't yet. It is kind of like we're almost ready to operate collectively at a much higher level, but we're still communicating with tin cans connected with string, and we all have paper bags over our heads, so we can't do anything very complex together, except for rather clumsily and haphazardly.
[ | 2003-04-09 02:34 | 4 comments | PermaLink ]  More >

 A revolution in three steps
Lee Felsenstein is an Internet oldtimer and activist. Here's a thing from his weblog:
"HOW TO MAKE A REVOLUTION in three easy steps

OK, here's the method for making sweeping, positive social change.

FIRST, everybody gets a project.

Join one or start one, but the project has to be directed toward making things better. That's what's called a "positive vector".

SECOND, everybody talks with everybody else about their projects.

That's "talks with", not just "talks to" or "talks at". This sets up a "field of communication", with information flowing in all directions. It's very important to the process, and we now have the tools (the Internet and the phone system) to make communication available without much hierarchy.

THIRD, be prepared to change your project based upon what you learn by communicating about it.

This is also very important. It "closes the feedback loop" by making the communication consequential, and, with everyone's good sense, sets up a "converging system" in the general direction of the vector.

That's it. Act, especially in concert with others, communicate and re-evaluate. Repeat as often as possible. Oh, yes - keep records of what you try and what happened , both good and bad. The system needs an element of memory to function. "
OK. Organization based on each person actually having something meaningful to do, and on a process of continuous dialogue.
[ | 2003-04-09 23:59 | 2 comments | PermaLink ]  More >

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