What is the future of money? And not just money, but currencies in general – from virtual currencies to timebanks to social currencies based around trust, identity, reputation, expertise and relationships. And not just currencies, a.k.a. tools that are supposed to represent a unit of measurement in order to transact, but also value exchange in general and the social behaviors that precede them.
So we’re really talking about The Superfluid Economy, the set of tools and behaviors that are developing to make economic exchange, transactions, payments, commerce, distributed collaboration, resource allocation, and social enterprise formation as frictionless and fluid as possible.
To kick off the conversation, I pulled up 10 projects that are innovating in this space which are either developing new products and services, or raising awareness through art and media. We’re excited to know that some of the initiatives below will be represented at Contact!
Phi Beta Iota: Each generation marks their own path. The above list does not include the real pioneers of Open Money and community credits. Learn more at Open Money, Openmoney, and P2P Open Money Category.
Revolutions are caused by human agency; not telecommunications technologies, scholar argues.
To listen to the hype about social networking websites and the Egyptian revolution, one would think it was Silicon Valley and not the Egyptian people who overthrew Mubarak.
Via its technologies, the West imagines itself to have been the real agent in the uprising. Since the internet developed out of a US Defense Department research project, it could be said the Pentagon did it, along with Egyptian youth imitating wired hipsters from London and Los Angeles.
Most narratives of globalisation are fantastically Eurocentric, stories of Western white men burdened with responsibility for interconnecting the world, by colonising it, providing it with economic theories and finance, and inventing communications technologies. Of course globalisation is about flows of people as well, about diasporas and cultural fusion.
But neither version is particularly useful for organising resistance to the local dictatorship. In any case, the internet was turned off at decisive moments in the Egyptian uprising, and it was ordinary Egyptians, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, who toppled the regime, not the hybrid youth of the global professional classes.
Nothing new about globalisation
Are there other tales of globalisation, perhaps those told by rebels and guerrillas?
Robert David STEELE Vivas Click Here to See Personal Page
ROBERT STEELE: Revolution is about the combination of three things: grotesque imbalance combined with evolutionary psychology of a public to the point that the cognitive dissonance is paradigm shattering; a precipitant or catalyst, and the Davies J-Curve, a “sense” on the part of sufficient numbers that there is light ahead, that they might actually win.
When they come–relatively infrequently–revolutions are best supported with information and civil affairs capabilities. A massive public intelligence effort to help the people, the true custodians of their own commons, understand where the wealth is, where the opportunities are, whom to hold accountable; combined with a precision civil affairs effort, ideally manned by individuals who are ethnically and spiritually homogeneous with those they are helping, are the two best things well-intentioned external powers can provide.
Along with precision information–which no government is capable of today for failure to invest in the open source tri-fecta–comes precision stabilization & reconstruction assistance, of 21st Century Civil Affairs–a civil affairs cadre for a multiniational endeavor that is C4I heavy, truly multinational, and focused on delivering just enough just in time “peace from above.” That too is beyond the capability of any government today, not for lack of capacity, but for lack of mind-set.
2012 is a year of Awakening. The traditional colonial powers can remain comatose as they are now, or they can push the “re-set” button and actually participate in what could be the greatest renaissance of humanity in modern history.
A really uplifting new documentary, “I AM”, has just hit theaters featuring my dear friend, Marc Barasch. This film, based in significant part on Marc's insights into empathy, altruism and social healing from his seminal book, Field Notes on the Compassionate Life is taking off. A previous DVD by Marc, The Compassionate Life: Walking the Path of Kindness, is available online.
It made the top ten list of indie films this week and last, after a successful launch on the coasts. It will also be shown at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder next month.
Tom Shadyac, Jim Carey director and the film¹s creator, has been touring with the film, as noted in indieWIREŒs profile of the film's strategy earlier this week. The film takes on Washington next weekend followed by Boston before expanding to other markets.
Along with Marc's truly inspiring segments, it features Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, David Suzuki, Lynn McTaggert, Ray Anderson and other luminaries. The “through-line” of this entertaining documentary is
Shadayac personal journey, following a serious accident, to discover “what's wrong with the world and what we can do about it” — a quest which he has said was triggered, in part, by Marc's own literary and life pilgrimage.
Posted 31 August 2008 this actually dates back to 2004 coincident with the Democratic Convention. Paul Ray is introduced by Jim Garrison, and presents new information with respect to 87% of the US electorate believing Earth should be treated as a living system.
Provocatively entitled “The Fight for Reality” Russian Television (a very effective counterpart to Voice of America) is on the air in a very pro-Gaddafi series that accuses Western media of lying and hyping the situation with blatant mis-information.
Press Lying About Libya and Gaddafi- Removed from YouTube Russia Confirms NO LIBYAN AIR ATTACKS Have Taken Place At All
In other news, one of Gaddafi's sons is saying that Libya financed the election of the “clown” that is now President and they want their money back.
Dr. Stephen Blank, one of America's top experts on Russia and the former satellites of the USSR, likens US Intelligence to a clipping service, a very bad one. He itemizes the recent failures of US Intelligence and observes that anyone in the audience he was addressing in NYC could have written a better threat estimate than that presented by the Director of National Intelligence recently to Congress. Includes video of his full answer to the question about US Intelligence.
