I often claim that moving towards a peer to peer based society means moving to a higher level of complexity. Thus, we are not advocating a new type of society based on losing any contemporary advantages (broadly speaking), but rather saving the essential achievements and building on top of that.
I then further distinguish two scenarios, a high road of change, based on building on global reform (the progressive Obama hypothesis), that involves as it were a compromise with the enlightened part of the current establishment; and a low road, that of buildiing resilient communities out of the chaos of the destructuring present.
Interestingly, according to John Robb, even that last scenario, represents a solution towards a higher complexity.
I let him argue for himself, but perhaps you should take a look at the explanation of the STEMI compression change dynamic first.
“Do Resilient Communities offer the promise of a generational improvement over the existing global system or not?
In other words: is the Resilient Community concept (as envisioned here) a viable self-organizing system that can rapidly and virally crowd out existing structures due to its systemic improvements?
Using STEMI compression as a measure, there is reason to believe it is:
* Space. Localization (or hyperlocalization) radically reduces the space needed to support any given unit of human activity. Turns useless space (residential, etc.) into productive space.
* Time. Wasted time in global transport is washed away. JIT (just in time production) and place.
* Energy. Wasted energy for global transport is eliminated. Energy production is tied to locality of use. More efficient use of solar energy (the only true exogenous energy input to our global system).
* Mass. Less systemic wastage. Made to order vs. made for market.
* Information. Radical simplification. Replaces hideously complex global management overhead with simple local management systems.
The above indicates that Resilient Communities do offer what appears to be a generational improvement in system design. However, one final requirement must be met. Does this generational improvement conserve or replicate the computational complexity of the previous system? Can it continue to process, innovate, and respond as quickly as the previous system? I believe the answer is yes. If Resilient Communities remain globally connected via Internet networks, there’s reason to believe that re-localization is possible without losing any of the previous computational complexity of the system. Further, as the new self organizing system replaces the old one, new forms of organizational innovation (open source, for example) may radically outpace the progress seen in the previous system.”