interesting tie in between trust and risk

Could the next generation of online communications strengthen civil society by better connecting people to others with whom they share affinities, so they can more effectively exchange information and self-organize? Could such a system help to revitalize democracy in the 21st century? When networked personal computing was first developed, engineers concentrated on extending creativity among individuals and enhancing collaboration between a few. They did not much consider what social interaction among millions of Internet users would actually entail. It was thought that the Net's technical architecture need not address the issues of "personal identity" and "trust," since those matters tended to take care of themselves.\n\nThis paper proposes the creation of an Augmented Social Network (ASN) that would build identity and trust into the architecture of the Internet, in the public interest, in order to facilitate introductions between people who share affinities or complementary capabilities across social networks. The ASN has three main objectives: 1) To create an Internet-wide system that enables more efficient and effective knowledge sharing between people across institutional, geographic, and social boundaries. 2) To establish a form of persistent online identity that supports the public commons and the values of civil society. 3) To enhance the ability of citizens to form relationships and self-organize around shared interests in communities of practice in order to better engage in the process of democratic governance. In effect, the ASN proposes a form of "online citizenship" for the Information Age.

"If someone asks you who you are, how do you identify yourself? You may tell them your name, job, nationality, race or religion. You probably realize that this answer does not encompass who you truly are. As we classify ourselves in various categories, we establish divisions between ourselves and others. Often it requires a catalyzing event, such as a natural disaster, for people to realize that we cannot survive if we don't work together. __ Today, due to global warming and other environmental issues, Earth faces many such disasters. Ilchi Lee, founder of the Earth Citizen Movement, first issued a call to action in 2001 in his book Healing Society. He wrote that once 100 million people realize they are Earth citizens and take action together, they will change the world. Enlightenment, Lee states, is not just knowledge. It is also action. Without action, he claims, knowledge is useless. __ The purpose of Lee's Earth Citizen Movement is to get people to declare themselves citizens of Earth. Rather than identifying with their nationality, race, or religion, they accept that they are human first, living together on Earth. The members believe human beings are all connected, and that realizing our common values will be the first step in recovering our humanity. __ The Earth Citizen Movement formally began in April 2009 and is growing all over the world. It has members in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Korea and Japan. So far, over 100,000 people have joined. The movement's goal is reach to 100 million people. "

"Hub Culture founder Stan Stalnaker shares his thoughts in a Q&A with Rachel Botsman on sharing, the power of the commons, and peer-to-peer transaction. Rachel Botsman is co-authoring a book with Roo Rogers entitled What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption (being published by Harper Collins in 2010). The book is about how people are collaborating together through organized sharing, bartering, trading, renting, swapping and collectives to get the same pleasures of ownership with reduced personal cost and burden -- and lower environmental impact. RB: We look at how look how social networks and web technologies are giving new relevance to pre-industrial behaviors such as bartering, swapping, trading, social lending etc. that require marketplace structures. Essentially how we are going back to 'human to human transactions' between producer and consumer, seller and buyer, borrower and lender, neighbor to neighbor etc. What are your thoughts on this? What are your favorite examples of this in action? SS: We see the world evolving into a complete peer-to-peer system, beyond just communications but in finance and eventually energy as well. This means that the ability for individuals to transact with each other, at the mass-micro level, will transform how we value our sense of worth and of selves. The explosion in virtual and digital communities is driving this, and layered over existing 'real-world' relationships, creates a transactional fabric that will soon dominate the economic system. In the end, I think we will see an emergence of an economic relationship and fascination with networked efficiency that comes to dominate our worldview. This fits well with the sustainability model we need to develop to dovetail resource availability with demand; and not a moment too soon."