Personal Democracy Forum 2008
Note by Vanessa Scanfeld:
same as we were 60,000 years ago. the "kit" big brains, thumbs, hips. civilization was stable, consistent. sapien paradox: if we had the kit why did it take us so long? needed the cultural software - kept learning things. made civilization, then culture, cities, law, religion. then - cultures along similar lines of geography could share innovations across civilizations as long as on same latitude.
civilization - 9-10,000 years ago. was also conservative force. became a very stablequarter until guttenberg - printing press. able to share insights - sparked peer review, enlightenment. radically amplified engines of human culture and led to industrial era. Then demos. Created conditions for mass cities, markets, media. logic of that era was liberalism. freedom of capital, labor. now facing existential threat.
in past few months, half planet had mobile phones. mobile phones might be potent tool for eliminating poverty. for us, social tool. for entire population without access to instant communication - enables sociability. cornerstone of human success - has always been the best way to get ahead. gap between raw capability and software of culture. we had the web for a decade before we figured out what good for. gap in use of wikis. learning gap. SMS was dismissed: 40 billion text messages sent. has been accelerated and amplified. just as steam engine transformed natural landscape, these new tools are transforming the social culture. 50,000 years of social transformation are being compressed into 20 years. coming as a shock.
children are experts in mimesis - learning by imitation. chips can outperform in cognitive tasks, but children are better at imitating. when any of us displays new behavior, it is observed and copied. Very quickly, successful behaviors are incorporated: hypermimesis. global and instantaneous copying. fluid, flexible, mobile, pervasive, inexorable. doesn't allow for secrecy, privacy, ownership. encountering opposition from conservative forces that want to moderate impact. but hard to control it. record companies and movie companies try to control it. Bloggers took down AG gonzalez despite best attempts of washington machinery. Potency of new cultural order. everyone can watch, learn from, talk to everyone else. can send out a call to find the others. and watch in wonder as half a million raise their hands. 3.5 billion are already in the network.
wikipedia - survey and capture all knowledge of humans. of the mob, by the mob, and for the mob. demonstrates that citizens moved from liberal bias (knowledge is scarce and valuable). wikipedia is not democratic or transparent. investigations have shown that the encyclopedia is regulated by Wikipedians. Article submissions are rejected at ever increasing rate. Can see tracing of hyper-politics. "Holding the line against chaos." keep out people "insufficiently notable" - this is a conservative viewpoint. risk wikipedia becoming a fossil. past no longer works, future looks like chaos.
Monday - SF international - UA gives flight info. Snapping pictures of monitor - one of women told him that his photos were making her nervous. Sharing makes the unpleasant endurable. Realized something: sharing is the threat. (not a threat; the threat). becomes pervasively available. no pretensions to control. politics won't be different. obama might be best thing since sliced bread. nationwide social network - activate again to win general election. then what? the mob will do as it pleases - obama can lead by example, but he cannot control.
fasten seatbelts. hyperconnectivity begets hypermimesis begets hyperempowerment.
future looks nothing like democracy.
civilization - 9-10,000 years ago. was also conservative force. became a very stablequarter until guttenberg - printing press. able to share insights - sparked peer review, enlightenment. radically amplified engines of human culture and led to industrial era. Then demos. Created conditions for mass cities, markets, media. logic of that era was liberalism. freedom of capital, labor. now facing existential threat.
in past few months, half planet had mobile phones. mobile phones might be potent tool for eliminating poverty. for us, social tool. for entire population without access to instant communication - enables sociability. cornerstone of human success - has always been the best way to get ahead. gap between raw capability and software of culture. we had the web for a decade before we figured out what good for. gap in use of wikis. learning gap. SMS was dismissed: 40 billion text messages sent. has been accelerated and amplified. just as steam engine transformed natural landscape, these new tools are transforming the social culture. 50,000 years of social transformation are being compressed into 20 years. coming as a shock.
children are experts in mimesis - learning by imitation. chips can outperform in cognitive tasks, but children are better at imitating. when any of us displays new behavior, it is observed and copied. Very quickly, successful behaviors are incorporated: hypermimesis. global and instantaneous copying. fluid, flexible, mobile, pervasive, inexorable. doesn't allow for secrecy, privacy, ownership. encountering opposition from conservative forces that want to moderate impact. but hard to control it. record companies and movie companies try to control it. Bloggers took down AG gonzalez despite best attempts of washington machinery. Potency of new cultural order. everyone can watch, learn from, talk to everyone else. can send out a call to find the others. and watch in wonder as half a million raise their hands. 3.5 billion are already in the network.
wikipedia - survey and capture all knowledge of humans. of the mob, by the mob, and for the mob. demonstrates that citizens moved from liberal bias (knowledge is scarce and valuable). wikipedia is not democratic or transparent. investigations have shown that the encyclopedia is regulated by Wikipedians. Article submissions are rejected at ever increasing rate. Can see tracing of hyper-politics. "Holding the line against chaos." keep out people "insufficiently notable" - this is a conservative viewpoint. risk wikipedia becoming a fossil. past no longer works, future looks like chaos.
Monday - SF international - UA gives flight info. Snapping pictures of monitor - one of women told him that his photos were making her nervous. Sharing makes the unpleasant endurable. Realized something: sharing is the threat. (not a threat; the threat). becomes pervasively available. no pretensions to control. politics won't be different. obama might be best thing since sliced bread. nationwide social network - activate again to win general election. then what? the mob will do as it pleases - obama can lead by example, but he cannot control.
fasten seatbelts. hyperconnectivity begets hypermimesis begets hyperempowerment.
future looks nothing like democracy.
