Social Hallucinations

The Obama Disconnect

"...when two million people are in motion in favor of something, because they put themselves in motion, we know what that feels like. It's called a movement. It started to happen in 2007-08, and it hasn't happened since."

Micah L. Sifry on the Obama disconnect after election. very insightful analysis on political myth that hit reality and never turned out to be true.

Did we become 21st century slaves?

"A society that becomes expert in tools and ignorant of reasons is taking the decision of self-enslavement. Curiosity by itself is harmless. It should be curiosity that generates action, that moves us, what finally makes us creative, which humanizes us." (cristian saracco)

Provoking thought. 

21st century slaves, slaves of bit of information that will never be turn into worthy ideas and actions cause no one ever took time to explore it. Scan, check, move on. Exposed to many impulses, endless stream of information and meaningless life-casting, we have no time to explore if we want to keep updated and follow. I actually believe that it's curiosity that stops us on the surface, cause we are curious what will be posted next. We know so many things but nothing really in particular and often one can doubt whether what we have just read was worthy or just bullshit. It resonates actually with H. Rheingold's thoughts on the importance of digital literacy. Giving the deeper thought, giving yourself time to comprehend and evolve, not just re-tweet. We have so much choice that disarms us and we have difficulties handling opt-out and we are continuously give partial attention to everything and in fact learning nothing except facts...

Internet is good because Internet is people and their incredible minds but you have to hit the right stream and have a courage to dive in. Some are exploring the deep blue, others float on the surface.I can't stop asking myself whether is it any different from times before 21st century? or are we really living in the intellectual wasteland turning us into slactivists?

What do you think?

What's your social nutrition label?

A few weeks ago I wrote about the need of the renaissance of business and its values, about the need for the good people doing good business in the networked markets. We need responsibility.

Unfortunately doing good business is often shadowed by the rip offs driven by greed. Like the latest scam: The Post Transaction Marketing Wall Of Shame: Hundreds Of Well Known Ecommerce Sites Rip Off Customers.

We re-tweet the link to the latest report: Most Fortune 100 Companies Don't Get Twitter and are so obsessed with trying to help companies to get the twitter. But it is not there were problem lies. Problem is that companies doesn't get responsibility and honesty. Problem is that well known companies choose cheating as the way of earning money. I do not expect the Utopian ideal world where we all will love one another and live in peace and harmony. I just expect decency.

I must admit Dostoevsky was right when he wrote "If people have power over everything, the world would cease to exist."

Fortunately there are also some positive things happening around. I've stumbled lately upon the project that is a step in a way of responsibility driven by consumers - Project Label that mission is to provide the consumer with a standardized way of comparing similar products in terms of the products' social impacts.

"Project Label strives to produce people-powered social nutrition labels. Just think food nutrition labels, but instead of only showing the impact on your health, our labels will show a company's social and environmental impact. Unlike many “green” labels out there, WE don't build these labels, YOU do. Using the power of the Web, we provide simple tools to allow consumers, businesses, and organizations to add, discuss, and vote on credible news, media, and research to help build our labels."

We don't compare just prices but turn our attention to more universal and long-term oriented values like companies' social responsibility. It will be interesting to follow the project grow and see its impact on consumer behavior. It is also the right step in the direction of adding more human and responsible face to consumerism.

Let's hope decency wins and business' social nutrition labels will be very healthy...one day :)

"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."  Vaclav Havel

Inspired by: @misEntropy, @charlesfrith, @futurescape

Social(istic) Media or The Rise of the New Capitalism?

From now and then, there are voices talking about the digital media and the possibilities they bring - the driving force behind the new socialism era. But the question is whether the possibilities created by the digital media make socialism possible, or whether what we see is the rise of the new capitalism.

Image via Wikipedia

Socialism (latin societas - community) is the ambiguous term, referring to attempts to reduce social inequality and the spread of social services, treatment or management of social control through state institutions, local government, corporation or cooperative). What's common for various types of socialism is partial or total rejection of  the idea of capitalist free market, the restriction of private property and promotion of the idea of social justice. The aim was to build a socialistic society without poverty, where market forces are not the primary mechanism for distribution of wealth and where the functioning of society is based on common ownership, mutual cooperation and altruism. Beautiful idea but never proved to work (or fail - as it is not compatible with human nature). We are herd animals, but every herd needs the leader and clearly defined roles to ensure the proper functioning and survival of the group.

The whole problem with socialism is that the idea of socialism looks good on paper:

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts in the cowshed with other cows. You have to look after all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

Image by publicenergy via Flickr

Then you have the real socialism (which I experienced and would never recommend to anyone as one of the most humiliating systems to an individual and humanity):

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts in the cowshed with other cows that is taken care of by a former poultry farmer. You have to deal with the chickens, which the government took away from the farmers who are in charge of cowsheds. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as law allows, not as much as you need.

Third option is the national socialism - total exploitation, mean capitalism in disguise:

You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to care for them and sells you the milk with the flag state.

Sharing, cooperation and collaboration that are characteristic for the social media aren't quite working in the socialism, because there are always institutions watching and controlling the sharing or collaboration and trying to regulate those with laws. Maybe not a bad idea, but where regulations and power are involved, the inequalities usually emerge.
Of course there are also some positive sides in socialism, because it focuses on the common good but I can't see its chances to thrive in the world where people value their privacy and right to property. We are too independent and focused on our own success and own profits, driven by our needs. The value is YOU. Youniverse & Meritocracy are what drives the digital media evolution.

What we observe today is the rise of the new networked capitalism with intellect as the form of social capital that increases with use and the new digital opportunities are facilitators that drive the intellect growth. The value of the corporations in the new capitalism era - cognitive capitalism - comes from their ability to create new communication tools (Google), connect people (Facebook, Twitter), etc. Personal drivers as taste, creativity plays a huge role in the production process (Nike ID, Aston Martin). The property rights in relation to intellectual property also dramatically change (Napster).

In the industrial capitalism machines sucked workers in, depersonalized and automatized work, today computers / software sucked our knowledge, mashed it up and customized it getting it available and usable / reusable at every click. The question is not longer how much you produce but how much you manage to seed. The more you seed the more growth you create. What justify the existence and enhances the power of our ideas are their ability to spread and inseminate other minds (self-promotion happens to be quite effective insemination technique when used right) - twitter, blogs etc. being the tools helping on the way. It means social media has nothing to do with socialism except first 6 letters, they are the new capitalistic means of production and seeding. The question whether they contribute to the common wealth or satisfy egoistic needs and ambitions, I will leave open for now...

Image by diankarl*www.diankarlina.com* via Flickr

Sources:

Capitalisme cognitif (Le):nouvelle grande transformation, Moulier Boutang Yann

The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online, Wired

2009 - Another Chance for Us to Get it Right

31st December - the last day of the year. Soon we are going to say farewell to the 2008 and welcome the New Year. We will make New Year's resolutions believing we have just got a new chance to change things, to do things differently. So let's not waste that opportunity.

In 2008 we've seen the apogee of our greed manifested through conspicuous consumption and its collapse. Aristotle said once "The avarice of human is insatiable" - we proved he was right over 2000 years later. We consume more than we can take. We live in a world where exploitation has reached the perfection. We are tempted everyday and put in the situation we have to choose between values or benefits. We've become the society there is a huge discrepancy between the norms and socially accepted tools to live according to those norms (I am going to write more about it next year). We entered the state of social disorder.

It may sound pessimistic, but if something is broken we can fix it. We can't just fix it with the old broken tools.

One of the most positive things happening in 2008 was the wave of good thinking coming from people like Neil Perkin - Goodness and Happiness, Faris Yakob, Charles Firth, Umair Haque and many many others. They have pointed out that generosity and doing good things are the new way of the strategic thinking. This is the approach we need if we want to make the necessary change and re-find the meaning we've eaten along with other stuff. This caused us a serious indigestion, we come to suffer from in the coming year. 

Instead of trying to predict what will happen, make things happen. It is us who shape the future, so don't waste the time to speak about it - after all we have no idea about it, as it is unpredictable and random as shaped by unpredictable humans creating endless connections and networks of influence. Let's make Doing Meaningful Things to our business model. Stop wasting any type of resources and keep in mind what Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said once: "Less is more".

This is my New Year's Resolution: Make More from Less.
What is yours?

Happy New Year!

I am looking for the brand new year and I wish you all the best in 2009 all my dear readers! Thanks for reading my rants and inspiring me.

Photo by Celeste