Politics, Charity, News/Journalism, Aesthetics…

Journalism: “Hey, Ooga… I just saw the first berries of the season!”… again rooted in enhancing collective survivability, in this case by exchange of information

And have done a fair amount of work with hopes of addressing this.

The ONLY slight caveat… it may be that a universally-owned* platform could be constructed to not only be at least somewhat profitable… but could thereby use any such profits to re-enforce the capabilities of its weakest members.

(this is only an hypothesis, or maybe even just an attempt at a pragmatic ‘dream’ for the future… it’s not set in stone)

Let me explain how such “universal ownership” might be defined in terms of a needed utility I call the Commons-dedicated Account Network:

A self-supporting , Commons-owned neutral network of accounts for both political and charitable monetary contribution… which for fundamental reasons of scale must allow a viable, one-button, secure micro-transaction. Such a network ideally should maintain its own cloud and bank. Accounts may be created and/or maintained with zero balances and/or only momentary balances during a pass-through transfer (monetization model requires no burden on the actual transaction.)

(a simple but functional demo at http://www.Chagora.com )

The reason Facebook doesn’t have the persistence people think it might is while Facebook is currently dominant, it doesn’t address the requirements for deep peer-to-peer association. It doesn’t understand its roots in proximity and capability… in other words it doesn’t really help people accomplish anything much with others.

The Internet is a landscape… I believe no larger change to the human landscape of interaction has occurred since the birth of agriculture… which essentially coincided with the birth of currencies and finance as transactional technologies.

This is a CRITICAL change in the nature of transaction. Within a hunter-gatherer group ALL transactions were in:

Politics – the exchange of ideas for individual and group decision to enhance the survivability of that group and any allies.

Charity – the exchange of collective ‘wealth’ within the group for achievement of better social balance… and again… to enhance the survivability of that group and any allies.

Aesthetics – the exchange of ‘creative forms’ to enhance a non-material based sense of well-being or accomplishment and… to enhance the survivability of that group and any allies.

While there was certainly inter-group barter pre-money… It was only with the move to settled existence that the commercial transaction and its attendant technologies (finance, banking, law, etc.) arose.

I believe web technology, for the first time since the birth of the commercial transaction… has the opportunity to restore these earlier transactions to, if not the former dominance they once held, at least into a much healthier balance.

I believe there is value, (and maybe even an imperative) to the extent possible currently, to EXTRACT these transactions from the current financial system (while still relying on it so long as necessary).

And that under a “For Profit” model it MAY be possible to make interests relying on the commercial transaction (this is not necessarily evil in itself) to a certain extent DEPENDENT on the well-being… and goodwill… of the non-commercial sector and it’s landscape (platform/network).

*Universal ownership (a possible structure?): Admittedly idealistic but perhaps not entirely impracticable): one share per living human… non-transferable… expires with death… profits to be distributed NOT EQUALLY… but rather as a drawing right to food, shelter and basic healthcare for those lacking them.

A very abbreviated logic chain:

1. There’s potential in the political and speech-related microtransaction for networked citizen lobbying, candidate support, journalism, etc. if it can be harnessed.
2. Problem is the cost and hassle of the microtransaction.
3. This problem is solved by system similar to x-box points (which is how they handle microtransaction issue for certain system content).
4. Additional problem is catalyzing the network
5. Addition of charitable potentials solves this for a variety of reasons related to system monetization and a more general user-utility
6. Patent has just been granted for this mechanism: Patent #7,870,067
7. Establishment of useful network opens up new fields for empowered association
8. There are theoretical reasons for need for such a system but points 1-7 above are about a PRAGMATIC implementation.
9. Should any of the points above be in doubt (which is reasonable) ask a question.

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/culturalengineer

Social Networks & The Social Organism: Healing the Breach
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2009/05/social-networks-social-organism-healing.html

Empowering the Commons: The Dedicated Account (Part I)
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2010/08/empowering-commons-dedicated-account.html

Capability ENABLES Responsibility http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2008/10/capability-enables-responsibility.html

Fixing the Political Relationship
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5qxJDnwXAU

P.S. While essentially a simple financial innovation… To see how it may relate to privacy and Online ID see the following article by Nancy Scola at TechPresident and my comment:

What’s to Actually Like About “Obama’s Online ID”? CDT’s Aaron Brauer-Rieke Explains…
http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/whats-actually-about-obamas-online-id-cdts-aaron-brauer-rieke-explains

Inquiries welcome… investment and assistance even more so.