![]() Recently Adam Greenfield proposed an open-source collaborative project to develop a manual for the (re-)construction of a nation. The premise is that no group of bureaucrats, military strategists and civil servants can possibly know how to rebuild a country, especially one whose citizens may have never known democracy, freedom, rule of law, or any of the other constructs that we think are essential to the functioning of a civil state. No one has been able to impose (Afghanistan) or quickly and painlessly evolve (ex-Soviet states) a nation-model that works. Even the best current systems have taken centuries of war, intermittant misery and inequity to emerge and are wildly imperfect and fragile. So the idea is: Design an open-source model using collaborative tools. Let all the people affected participate in its creation, so it’s right for the culture and evolutionary state of those who have to live with it. Let those who think they have the answers write chapters or constitutions or bills of rights or judicial frameworks and submit them for immediate response, editing and referenda by the citizens. I think it’s a wonderful idea. Now all we have to do is try it out in Afghanistan by setting up a mass of computers in communities around the country, equipped with multi-lingual collaborative and learning tools and facilitators to enable it to happen. Think Bill Gates might chip in for this? And, of course, the ‘conquering nations’ need to pony up the money needed to rebuild and bootstrap the infrastructure and institutions required by the people’s design. That’s a taller order. This idea got me thinking about the possibility of using blogspace to write a novel. I’ve already written the set-up chapter for a utopian novel, and skeleton descriptions of its twelve characters. The plan was to write twelve additional chapters, each written from the perspective of one of the characters. The novel is set in an Edenic future where, after a major viral plague, man has finally learned his place in the world and lives in peace with all the planet’s creatures. It’s not a cautionary tale. Instead, the idea is to show what’s possible on our beleaguered planet if we were to deal with the underlying causes of the problems (e.g. overpopulation, lack of education etc.) instead of their symptoms (war, crime etc.) In business this type of construct is called a Future State Vision. It occurred to me that these fictional characters’ stories might be richer and more believable if the chapters were actually written by different people. I’ve heard of other collaborative creative exercises working well (a superb example is Jonathan Elias’ Prayer Cycle , which features overlays by Alanis Morissette, Salif Keita and other musicians from all over the world overlaying native-language vocal tracks on Elias’ multi-lingual adagio compositions; the artists apparently never met in person). Advice, or lessons from other collaborative non-pornographic writing exercises, would be welcome. |
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--- My Best 100 Posts --
Preparing for Civilization's End:
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Save the World Reading List
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
Giving Up on Environmentalism
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture:
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self:
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
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What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
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