Apologies accepted.
Now let's get away from our computers and go out and enjoy what is a wonderful sunny day. Arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Verdon Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 11:59 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Ottawadissenters] RE: [Futurework] Musing on the Vancouver Stanley Cup riot Well Arthur I again apologize, I think I did misunderstand your original post. I did not read it as a call for a practical realistic positive strategy/image to act upon today. If I would have understood this my reply would have been different. What I understood was a generalized lament of a lack of positive image for the future. I understand now that this was not what you meant. I agree, strongly agree that the current paradigm is insufficient, and in DND I am actually expected to deliver some very practical and implementable policy change (within my mandate of 'knowledge management') and in fact have had modest success in socializing ideas founded on today and an inevitable transitions in the near future - much of it being on the nature of work and the work-place. And yes it dramatically challenges the established order - at DND and in the government. Trying to steward a cultural change is beyond one person's ability, although one person can have impact if one can develop sufficiently powerful ideas (e.g. Jean-Jacque Rosseau's proposition that the general will can be the sovereign). But even when these ideas are powerful and compelling it take much time for them to be worked out in detail and practically applied. As Dewey noted "There is nothing more practical than a good theory". It is to this end that my work at DND has been focused. And as I said - I have had modest success - even if it is only measured by the acceptance by the senior management of DRDC of my proposed 'strategic aim for knowledge management'. This in itself is no small feat because this strategic aim is itself founded on a significant re-definition of what 'knowledge' is and how it is kept alive. But nowhere in your original post did I get the sense that you where asking for suggestion that would have practical policy utility. You want a positive image of the future - I would say that the continuing struggle to further the view that was born with Rousseau, Smith and the founding fathers of democratic politics - a concept that Gerald Fairtlough has called 'responsible autonomy'. But there is no magic pill. The great narratives of 'sovereign leadership by divine right through the 'great chain of being' still lives in our politics (e.g. Tea Party, Neocons, etc) and the counter narrative of responsible autonomy, governance of commons and true market systems have only been imperfectly developed and implemented. However history does seem to indicate that a narrative of progressive inclusion (from property owning white men - to all white men - to all men - to women - to universal rights) seems to be gaining ground. Although this is contested at every step. The emerging digital environment is profoundly changing the conditions that made the entrenched the hegemony of hierarchy because it was in fact efficient (e.g. Coase's theory of costs). The costs that made self-organizing human efforts inefficient have and are collapsing as the digital environment becomes more ubiquitous. This profound change in the conditions of change means we do need new ideas/concepts for governance - I've recently read Elinor Ostrom and she provides both theory and evidence for how self-governance can be improved. If fact I think that for the first time since Smith we are approaching the possibility of actualizing real market system (not the anti-market that Manuel de Landa describes as what exists today). As far as sustainability is concerned - I think our solutions have to be technological (and I include language, mathematics and culture as technologies - which means to be human is to be technologically depended/formed). What will stabilize population growth is the development of new ways of being for women (e.g. beyond baby maker) and to change conditions where having lots of kids is an asset (e.g. agricultural/rural societies) which means more urban societies. Density and connectivity are intensive medium which in turn experience 'phase transitions'. A simple example is the phase transitions that go hand in hand with increases of population density (hunter/gatherer to agricultural to urban/industrial). The emerging digital environment foster a hyper-connectivity which with the collapse of age-old transaction, search, coordination and communication costs provide the stage for a phase transition into a digital economy - which is as radically different from industrial society/economy as industrial society is from agricultural/rural and from hunter-gatherer. So Institutional innovation is the heart of where we must make policy changes. This is hard, because it involves cultural change, memetic change - a radical new view of how we organize and govern ourselves. You want practical policy change then perhaps the best way is to focus on cost saving that arise in the digital environment and begin to change how we organize work. In the world of business and government we will see this in the next four years as new 'enterprise productivity suites' begin to replace (upgrade) our old productivity tools - within a few years managers will be driven to manage differently as workers find more effective and efficient ways of working. This will produce cultural change in organization and create new expectations or citizen participation. For example Finland is using Facebook to engage its citizens (66% are on Facebook) in the creation of its new constitution - e.g. new form of participatory governance. With new forms of work and technology (e.g. 3D printing) we may be able to move from a mass consuming society to a more modest society of producers-users aimed at the experience of self-actualization (e.g. as in Umair Haque's view of the potential for a new capitalism, & John Seely Brown et al view of new work-life-place). I did not mean to call you an old man (we are too close in age) I meant a humorous jib that you 'sounded' like an old man. The tone (as I misread it) sounded tired (which I too can identify with). So again Arthur apologies - as far as I am concerned I have not shouted at anyone, it was not my intention to insult anyone. john On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:56 AM, Arthur Cordell <[email protected]> wrote: John, Since my posting started this "discussion" , let me say how sad it makes me to see the shouting match that broke out. John, I really don't know what you are thinking or your starting point but somewhere in the background is a DND ethos. Your home department. To those who say why are Canadians dying in Afghanistan, the answer has to be "well people have died over the years and that is why we have democracy today...." And so on. All I did was say that the current paradigm is not adequate to organize Canadians to social action and commitment, not to mention something that gets them going each day. I was met with pessimist, cynic and almost called "defeatist". The latter being that old chestnut from past wars. And it is with respect that I say this since I think you have an unusual and eclectic intelligence. Perhaps this is how you have or had been able to survive so long within DND, by thinking way out of the box. To a degree that your writings on this issue have no practical policy use. And doesn't threaten the established order. Only by leaping ahead to some hypothetical future and drawing on past successes (called such, because we are here even though many have died) can you say that all will be well, albeit with some evolutionary adjustments along the way. This has been "a trip". But still, John, you haven't answered my original posting on the need for a positive vision for the future. Or, perhaps you have answered it: in the mishmash of techno optimism and sci fi musings there is no practical policy oriented vision of the future that is possible. Which in itself is quite sad. Arthur -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <mailto:Ottawadissenters%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:Ottawadissenters%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of David M Delaney Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 10:22 AM To: [email protected] <mailto:Ottawadissenters%40yahoogroups.com> Subject: Re: [Ottawadissenters] RE: [Futurework] Musing on the Vancouver Stanley Cup riot On 11-06-18 12:54 AM, John Verdon wrote: > The future is full of very serious problems - but even the scope of > our discussion about 'what to do' implies a level of human > intervention on the scale of 'terra-forming' and the need to increase > our own willful re-shaping of our selves and human societies - which > means more not less human intervention. So far this is a typical techno-optimist cornucopian dream, but then you wander off into acknowledging one of the simple, devastating, and conclusive, arguments that it's nonsense: > When we recognize that the whole thing is a complex system - we don't > know how small a difference will make a difference nor how big a > difference will make no difference at all. We have no idea of how a > well-intentioned reasoning will compound itself in the long to produce > unintended consequences (positive or negative) Strange. Paraphrase: "We have to manage society, the biosphere, and resources globally, (implicit: if we are to keep seven billion plus people alive) but that's impossible to do successfully." Sounds like a valid reductio ad absurdum. (In spite of the fact that global cooperation on the scale necessary to test the conclusion is also impossible.) ------------------------------------ Yahoo! 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