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Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology's Impact on... - 11 views

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    "The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene. The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These "techno-pessimists" predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation's hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped). Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred. The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order. If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such "techno-optimists," progress means some norms and institutions must adapt-perhaps even disappear-for society to continue its march forward. Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it-or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy."
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    I'm definitely an optimist...
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    yes, so am I, but somehow lately I feel it is not enough..
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    I think I fall into his category of 'pragmatic optimism-- "...The sensible middle ground position is "pragmatic optimism": We should embrace the amazing technological changes at work in today's Information Age but do so with a healthy dose of humility and appreciation for the disruptive impact pace and impact of that change.'" There's enough cool new stuff out there to warrant concepting a bright future, but that has to be tempered with the knowledge that nothing is perfect, and humans have a tendency to make good things bad all the time. I always refer back to the shining happy images that were concocted back in the 40's and 50's that predicted a wondrous new future with cars, and highways, and air travel, yet failed to foresee congestion, pollution, and urban sprawl. Yin and Yang in everything, right?
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    I don't believe in dichotomies, thus I am both at the same time. I prepare for both digital nirvana and the end of civilization and collapse of techology at the same time. I am here discussing the future of work with all of you, but I have a disaster kit in the basement and a plan with friends and family where to meet at a fertile plot of land with lots of water (I call it Kurtopia). I would recommend all of you do the same. Of course you must also carry on based on the status quo (don't quit work and cash the retirement funds and buy gold coins), as well as react to any variation in between. Crystal balls are a waste of attention. Consider all scenarios, make plans, then throw them away and react to circumstances as they are presented. Understand that plans are merely insurance policies and come with a cost to attention on the present. They are robust but not optimized. Considering the spectrum from optimistic to pessimistic, if we assume a bell curve distribution of probability (with the stops across the bottom being discrete and independent), I would say these days, for me the bell is flattening, it is less and less likely that the status quo will survive. I would go so far as to say perhaps the bell is inverted. This could be interpreted as a polarization - one of the pessimists positions - except that I don't believe that the person experiencing the optimistic paradigm will necessarily be a different person than the one experiencing the negative, thus don't subscribe to the position that technology will result in a new classism.
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    nice collection of articles listed in this article, I've missed some of them so will go remedy that situation now
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    does Kurtopia need someone to mow the lawn?
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    no, but we do need someone to take our throm-dib-u-lator apart though
Ferananda Ibarra

Network organisation for the 21st century : turbulence - 4 views

  • On the Virtues of Being Popular In any network, some nodes are more connected than others, making them ‘hubs’. This is a recurring pattern in the evolution of successful networks, ranging from the world wide web to many natural ecosystems. A ‘hub’ is not just a node with a few more connections than a usual node; a hub has connections to many other nodes – many quite distant – and also connects many disparate nodes (nodes of very different types). If you were to count all the connections each node has, you would get a mathematical distribution called a ‘power-law’ distribution with relatively few hyper-connected nodes – hubs – and a ‘long tail’ of less connected nodes.
  • Unlike networks that have a normal or random distribution of connections, networks that have a power-law distribution of connections are ‘scale-free,’ which means that no matter how many more nodes are added to the network, the dynamics and structure remain the same. This seems to be a sweet spot in the evolution of networks for stability and efficiency. The network can get bigger without drastic changes to its function.
  • The Surprising Strength of the Long Tail There is a looming contradiction: how can we have hubs and still have a strong network of dense connections that is not dependent on them? Don’t hubs lead to the emergence of permanent, entrenched leaders, centralisation and other well-documented problems? There is something of a tension here: the point is not simply that we should develop hubs, but that we have to simultaneously ensure that the hubs are never allowed to become static, and that they’re at least partially redundant. Sounds complicated, but healthy and resilient networks aren’t characterised simply by the presence of hubs, but also by the ability of hubs to change over time, and the replacement of previous hubs by apparently quite similar hubs.
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  • The long tail does not drop off into nothingness (which would be the ‘exponential’ rather than ‘power-law’ distribution), where there are a few hubs and every other node has almost no connections. Instead, the long tail is extensive, consisting of small groups of dense connections, going ever onwards. In fact, the vast majority of the connections in the network are not in the hub, but in the long tail. One clear example is that of book-selling in the 21st century: the majority of Amazon.com’s book sales are not in the best-seller list, but in those millions of titles in the long tail that only a few people order. Every successful movement must be built on dense local connections. It is these dense local connections that support the dynamic creation of hubs.
  • In a perfect world, every node would be a hub – we would all easily connect with any other person and be able to communicate. However, creating connections takes time and energy, so nodes that are more long-standing or just have more spare time will naturally become hubs
  • The Construction of Collective Intelligence Hubs tend to evolve naturally in well-functioning networks – but we can accelerate the process of network development
  • Collective intelligence requires a commons of collective representations and memory accessible to the network, and so digital representations on the internet are idea
    • Ferananda Ibarra
       
      That is exactly what they can do! Currencies as currents, as symbols of value enabling and making flows visible. Allowing us to see the tracks of the pheromones, the activities, the streams, the right signals, the hubs. We will be able to measure, trace value much more precisely. We will then be able to compose flows into landscapes (scapes) of that which is interesting for a node, for a hub, for a group or machine. Scapes will allow us to display information in unimaginable ways. Our collective intelligence right there, in the blink of an eye. We will be able to see wholes instead of parts, make patterns more visible.
  • You can imagine this on an individual level: a person using their mobile phone to remember the phone numbers of their friends. With easy access and reliability, the phone almost seems part of your intelligence. Just extend this so that the part of your mind that is extended into the environment is accessible and even modifiable by other people, and collective intelligence begins.
  • This use of the environment to store collective intelligence allows for the easier creation of hubs.
  • Collective intelligence allows highly organised successful actions to be performed by individuals who, with limited memory and knowledge, would otherwise be unable to become hubs.
  • Unfortunately people can’t become hubs without largely re-inventing the wheel. It might be irritating for existing hubs, but it’s true. Being a hub requires more than just introductions, it requires information, skills, knowledge, and a memory of the past. However, we can accelerate this process by decentring as much of the connections and knowledge as possible away from individual humans and onto the environment, whether this environment be books, websites, songs, maps, videos, and a myriad of yet un-thought-of representational forms. A useful example is the pheromone trace of the ant, reinforced as more ants use a particular trail. The mere act of ‘leaving a trail’ shows how individuals with limited memory can use the shaping of the environment as an external memory.
  • A key focus for improving our collective intelligence would be a few central websites compiling analyses of social movements and events, alongside practical pieces from key hubs and organisers on how particular events were pulled off. A collective ratings approach would allow people to quickly find needles in the electronic haystack, via Digg-It-style ‘I like this article’ tags, or collaborative bookmarking, allowing different users to see each other’s bookmarked webpages. Of course some of these types of things exist, with tagging systems well developed on sites of magazines, newspapers and blogs. However, no current website performs the function of an analysis and learning hub
  • If we are to act swiftly and sustain momentum we will need to create collective intelligence – the ability to create accurate records of events, distribute them widely, analyse success and failure, and to pass on skills and knowledge.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Is Open Source Design a Thing? - Freedom Penguin - 0 views

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    "October 14, 2016 Sean LeRoy 2 Comments Opinion The prowess and power of Open Source is undeniable. From servers, to the desktop, mobile, to the underpinnings of the so-called "Internet of Things", Open Source spans sectors and continents, public and private. One profession, however, that has traditionally been dominated by closed, proprietary software solutions - and usually very expensive ones at that! - is the field of design. In this article, we'll take a look at some free and open source options"
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    "October 14, 2016 Sean LeRoy 2 Comments Opinion The prowess and power of Open Source is undeniable. From servers, to the desktop, mobile, to the underpinnings of the so-called "Internet of Things", Open Source spans sectors and continents, public and private. One profession, however, that has traditionally been dominated by closed, proprietary software solutions - and usually very expensive ones at that! - is the field of design. In this article, we'll take a look at some free and open source options"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Julia Reda - Freedom to link threatened by EU court decision and copyright plans [Date:... - 1 views

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    "Today, the European Court of Justice significantly curtailed the freedom to hyperlink - one of the basic building blocks of the web. Together with the new special copyright protection for news articles the European Commission is planning to propose next week, the ability of Europeans to point to things online without having to fear breaking a law is in peril. Could the following message soon be commonplace on the European internet? Read on for details."
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    "Today, the European Court of Justice significantly curtailed the freedom to hyperlink - one of the basic building blocks of the web. Together with the new special copyright protection for news articles the European Commission is planning to propose next week, the ability of Europeans to point to things online without having to fear breaking a law is in peril. Could the following message soon be commonplace on the European internet? Read on for details."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Microsoft & Education: The Song Remains the Same | FOSS Force - 0 views

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    "Ken Starks It's the way of The Internet. What was once a raging firefight between two or more factions, is now a topic dead and forgotten somewhere on Slashdot or within other piles of forgotten Internetia. What was once a topic or cause over which to go to war, now only survives as fodder for The Oatmeal or other hip and funny sites. I'm talking about former the-tempests-in-a-teapot for such things as: #systemd #Mir #it_is_GNU/Linux_you_luddite Well, you get the idea…"
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    "Ken Starks It's the way of The Internet. What was once a raging firefight between two or more factions, is now a topic dead and forgotten somewhere on Slashdot or within other piles of forgotten Internetia. What was once a topic or cause over which to go to war, now only survives as fodder for The Oatmeal or other hip and funny sites. I'm talking about former the-tempests-in-a-teapot for such things as: #systemd #Mir #it_is_GNU/Linux_you_luddite Well, you get the idea…"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Don't Wreck The Net! Respond By January 6th - 0 views

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    "The European Commission is asking the public critical questions about the future of our online world, but these questions are buried throughout a lengthy consultation survey that will probably make your eyes water. We need you to tackle the survey and make your voice heard. It's not easy, so we're here to help. Go ahead, take a look at the public consultation. It's got five pages of oblique questions and too much smallprint for anyone's taste. But it's really all asking one thing: what are the roles and responsibilities of service providers in the digital world? Our survey survival guide helps you overcome the bureaucratic barrier and answer that question, because it's at risk of being ignored."
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    "The European Commission is asking the public critical questions about the future of our online world, but these questions are buried throughout a lengthy consultation survey that will probably make your eyes water. We need you to tackle the survey and make your voice heard. It's not easy, so we're here to help. Go ahead, take a look at the public consultation. It's got five pages of oblique questions and too much smallprint for anyone's taste. But it's really all asking one thing: what are the roles and responsibilities of service providers in the digital world? Our survey survival guide helps you overcome the bureaucratic barrier and answer that question, because it's at risk of being ignored."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The future is the Internet of Things-deal with it | Ars Technica UK - 0 views

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    "IoT is about to explode, perhaps literally, if privacy and security issues aren't fixed. by Sean Gallagher (US) - Oct 30, 2015 9:50am CET"
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    "IoT is about to explode, perhaps literally, if privacy and security issues aren't fixed. by Sean Gallagher (US) - Oct 30, 2015 9:50am CET"
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