The following are a series of assertions around our present geo-political circumstances and hypotheses about our most effective actions.

• There is a global institutional order, largely initiated as the aftermath of WWII and growing organically through to the fall of the Eastern Bloc, at which point it substantially accelerated. This order includes both active and passive interconnections that span economic, technological, social, cultural, political and military dimensions. By “institutional order” is meant the organizational and conceptual mechanisms by which human activities are focused and directed. This includes governmental organizations (the US Military, the EU ministry of agriculture, medicare), meta governmental organizations (the UN, the WTO, the IMF), NGOs, corporations, etc.
• This global institutional order was largely formulated based on the technical and conceptual state of the art existing after WWII. Although it has consistently been complexified and updated (“patched”) in the intervening 60 years, it is still fundamentally organized around hows, whats and whys that originate in that era.
• The foundation on which this order was built and by which it made sense has been undergoing profound transformation — particularly in the past two decades. Largely, this is the result of the unprecedented *success* of the present order: advances in information technology, increases in population, depletion of global natural resources, etc.
• Whenever an institutional order is faced with this kind of transformation of its fundament, it can choose two paths:

1. Deconstruct and reorganize functions around emerging capabilities
2. Attempt to conserve the existing order

The former choice involves significant pain. Disrupting existing means (and even ends) is contra human psychological tendencies. Moreover, it is not guaranteed to be successful — many things can happen when long-bound energies are released in an institutional reconstruction. As a consequence, it requires tremendous foresight and political will.

The latter choice ultimately involves the death of the society. An attempt to conserve an order that has become obsolete requires an intensification of “delusional” mechanisms that distance society from reality and eventually deplete its ability to operate. Thus society moves from productive to conservative to moribund. Depending on the political will and political power of the institutions driving the transition from productive to conservative, this death can be very quick and destructive (see French Revolution) or can potentially be delayed for a very long time (“zombieification”). Indeed, the period just following the transition from productive to conservative (open to closed) can be experienced as highly positive (a “golden age”). However, once a society moves to full closure — like any entropic environment — its fate is (largely, although never absolutely) sealed.

• The decision to deconstruct and reorganize can rarely (never?) be made by existing institutions (the past), it must, instead, be made by “institutions from the future” — which can provide solutions and vision that is simply outside of the means of existing institutions.
• It is possible to interpolate the shape of future institutional orders based on the present circumstances.
• Uniquely in history, our future institutional order must be self-assembling, self-organizing and meta-stable. There can be no central organizing structure that is adequate to their construction — instead they must be architected to “unfold” dynamically yet effectively.
• Nonetheless, we can assert several rules that are quite likely to be part of their basic operations:

– Data aware: in principle all possible transactions are stored and searchable

– Transparent: in principle all transactions can be viewed by all participants

– Distributed: in principle no levels of hierarchy

– Anti-fragile: designed to maximize and benefit from “black swan” events rather than minimize and suffer from them

– Auto-liberating: intrinsically difficult to capture and all efforts to capture are rendered ruinous

– Transient. Beyond the basic resilient holon and stored data, every function or organization is built with the time or conditions that warrant its death built into the design/plan.

The new system must run concurrently with the old in order to avoid inducing general collapse. To achieve this end:

1. It displaces due to choice and not force. Bit by bit and not all at once.
2. It can leverage mature services of the old system to gain capabilities rapidly and supplement deficits.
3. It must be able to defend itself against predation by the old system.
4. It replaces old system functions when able.
5. Connection to the new system is a function of desire/membership and a willingness to live by a set of rules, both at the individual level and at the level of the resilient community. Membership is not based on geography or accident of birth, it is earned through behavior.

Photo by giloudim

The post A Prolegomena to any Future Politics appeared first on P2P Foundation.

For example, I define baby boomers as those people who remember the Kennedy assassination, but not Pearl Harbor. Gen X as those people who remember the Challenger disaster but not Kennedy. Note that by the terms of this theory, people who are part of a given political nation, but not of a shared culture would never be part of the same “generation”. For example, recent immigrants will always have a unique enculturation compared to their peers, and, therefore, a different sensibility.

Generation Omega, then, would be that cohort of people who do not remember anything before September 11, 2001. These are kids who simply have no deep reference to what life was like before we decided as a culture to fully immerse ourselves in fear. Equally, of course, these are kids who have absolutely no recollection of the time before Google and Wikipedia, when the right answer was not simply a keystroke away. Interestingly, some of them will have vague recollections of life before smart phones, financial crises, gay marriage, and Minecraft; but these and many other cultural dynamics of the past decade and a half combine to form the general “adaptive landscape” that has given rise to their unique, shared generational sensibilities

Broadly speaking, we can suggest a number of characteristics that might be part of the generational flavor. For example, having been weaned in a highly interactive and responsive environment (think iTunes, YouTube and Minecraft), this is likely to be a generation of intuitive agency. They expect significant influence over and responsibility for their world. For example, unlike previous generations for whom media was an act of passive consumption (whatever is on NBC at 8 is what you are going to watch), their most fundamental assumption is the inverse: not only can you choose, but you must choose from a nearly unlimited selection. And the notion of being an active participant in “remix culture”? Millennials were the early adopters. For Generation Omega this is simply the water.

Additionally, of course, this is a generation for whom “to be networked” is an unconscious assumption. They are native collaborators and bricoleurs—assembling what they need from a cloud of people and materials “out there” on the network; and presenting it back without thinking twice. In a strong sense, precisely because it has been with them as long as walking and talking, they perceive the network as an extension of themselves. If Millennials are “digital natives”, Generation Omega is “network native”.

Finally, and less obviously, we might guess that this will be an extremely empathic and sensitive generation. Strauss and Howe refer to the children of a “crisis era” as the “Artist” archetype. Raised in a world characterized by a ubiquitous anxiety, these kids are over-protected during a time of adult sacrifice.

This has certainly been the case for Generation Omega. More than any time in history, this is a generation that has completely lost the right to roam. Where Boomers fondly remember hitch hiking across the country and walking miles alone to the local fishing hole, and Generation X recalls nomadic bike rides across the suburban landscape, the Omegas are rarely allowed to leave the house without an adult escort. Fear of school shootings, white vans, ebola, whatever, has left them always under the watchful gaze of adults (who might face jail time if they behave otherwise) and corralled into structured playdates in constructed environments. As a result, their physical environment is other people.

Hence their sensitivity. They started learning anti-bullying and empathy in kindergarten and their ability to navigate their world has been all about reading and dealing with other people. This is as true of their virtual lives as their physical lives. While Generation X was placated in front of television and the Millennials were plugged into video games, Generation Omega’s virtual experience is social. Grandma and Grandpa have always been a Skype call away. Every friend they’ve ever had is always within Instagram range. Virtually, they are always surrounded by a crowd.

We can go on and on, looking at the broad constants in the developmental landscape of these kids and sussing out guesses as to what this means for their long term generational character. But none of this is why I dub them Generation Omega.

The reason why they will be the last generation is not the world that produced them, but the world that they will produce for their children.

Over the next twenty years, Generation Omega (and their elders in Generation Y) will be faced by three fundamental questions. The resolution of these questions will, for good or for ill, describe a world that is so profoundly different from anything that humanity has yet experienced as to truly be the end of an era.

These questions are:

1. Humanity’s relationship to its environment
2. Humanity’s relationship to technology; and
3. Humanity’s relationship to itself

“We are as gods and we have to get good at it.”—Stewart Brand

 

HUMANITY + ENVIRONMENT

When Stewart Brand updated his 1968 Whole Earth Catalog slogan from “we are as gods and we might as well get good at it,” the message was clear: human beings have reached a degree of power and impact that, if we are to survive, we must learn how to take responsibility for our entire global environment.

From ocean acidification to soil depletion, from melting ice to dramatic changes in the chemical composition of our environment, the impact of humanity’s swelling population and power has been decisive. Every ecosystem. Every species. Every complex and subtle dynamic. This is a challenge that is unprecedented in the totality of global history—and it is a challenge that will fall firmly on the shoulders of Generation Omega.

The resolution of this challenge is going to require deep systemic change. For example, we are going to have to dispense with the extraordinary bullshit that we call dialogue these days and develop a collaborative truth-seeking function that is up to the task of getting eight billion super-empowered people to dance. This means more than just to come to a consensus on how the world works and how our actions impact it—it means to really coordinate in a way that we haven’t experienced as humans since we first began building the walls of Jericho. Amidst enormous uncertainty and subtle connections, we are going to have to engage in geo-engineering at the grand scale while pursuing intelligent, elegant and effective behaviours all the way down to the day to day lives of every individual.

It seems implausible. A utopian vision. Perhaps. But a Utopia built not of aspiration, but of necessity. As Stewart said, “We are as gods. We have to get good at it.”

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”—Albert Bartlett

HUMANITY + TECHNOLOGY

Perhaps the most astounding truth of the modern age is that certain kinds of technology advance not on linear, but on exponential curves. Moore’s famous law applies to batteries and bandwidth as much as to processors. Every year, more and more of our technical landscape is sucked into these exponential curves. In broad strokes, what this means is that every year sees more “innovation” than all of the years before combined.

More practically, what this implies is that the next twenty years will present technological changes so profound as to dwarf everything that has come before. The Science Fiction and “Transhumanist” communities have long toyed with the consequences of exponential technological growth. For Generation Omega these speculations will move firmly into the realm of reality.

Estimating these kinds of changes is notoriously hard for the human mind to grasp. Mathematically, if our technological ability continues to grow at the same rate that it has been growing, in twenty years we will be one million times more technologically capable than we are right now. One million times—in one generation. That is a bit like going from the invention of writing to the invention of the computer—in a single generation.

Human beings as we currently know them have absolutely no idea how to adapt to that rate and scope of change. Forget self-driving cars, 3D printers and autonomous drones. Those are the pong and slinky of Generation Omega. Certainly cybernetically-enhanced intelligence and detailed control over our children’s genetic material. Probably telepathy-like technologies and “swarm consciousness” where it becomes impossible to distinguish “your” thoughts from the thoughts of the people you are connected to. Possibly Matrix-like VR that is indistinguishable from reality.

And maybe digital super-intelligence, that favorite of “singularitarians.” Listen to Elon Musk, “[I] hope we’re not just the biological boot loader for digital super-intelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable.” Is the Singularity near? Maybe, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Generation Omega will find out. And that if the Singularity does come to pass, it could be the single most important event in the history of life. It may still smell of science fiction, but for those who are paying the closest attention, it is becoming more salient every day.

Regardless, it is likely that Generation Omega will find itself wielding power over all the various aspects of life far greater than any so far touched by man. How we will navigate such power is anyone’s guess. But what comes out the other end might very well be farther from us than we are from our hominid ancestors.

“If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.”—Buckminster Fuller

HUMANITY + SELF

In the first question we examined the growing necessity over the next twenty years of humanity taking responsibility for the whole of life. Then we looked at how through the exponential growth of technology we will have the power and capability of doing so—if we learn to master that power. We now come to the final crucial question: how will humanity come to have the collective and individual wisdom to accept this responsibility and to wield this power?

For those who are students of history and the human condition, this question is the most daunting. For millennia, we have (at least ostensibly) aspired to a world characterized by inner and outer peace. Great teachers have walked among us, numerous great traditions have attempted to provide practices to bring us wisdom. And yet war, violence and hatred are still a dominant portion of our world. It seems a desperately foolish hope to think that in a mere twenty years we could bring a critical mass of humanity to a level of wisdom, compassion and integrity that is adequate to the task.

Nonetheless, this shall be the task for Generation Omega. And there are reasons for optimism. There does seem to be a trend over the long course of our becoming civilized towards peace and away from violence. Moreover, it appears that human nature is inherently peaceful and cooperativeconstructed culture and not our inherent nature that leads to systemic violence.

This is more than theoretical. Over the past few decades an increasing number of thinkers have realized that we are currently undergoing a massive transition from an economy founded in scarcity toward an economy anchored in abundance. With this comes more and more research that those individuals, organizations and societies that can cultivate a generative or abundance mentality will out-perform those who hold to older conflict and zero-sum ideologies. Thus, not only is “collective wisdom” possible, it seems increasingly likely that in the high technology future, it is the winning strategy.

And here is where one of Generation Omega’s most unique characteristics becomes catalytic. Hitherto, generations have been an overwhelmingly national phenomena. Remember that a generation is defined by a shared set of cultural sensibilities. It seems that for quite some time, we have been witnessing the slow birth of a truly global culture. Certainly, the Baby Boomer generation in America has deep differences from their British or German or Japanese peers. But equally certainly, they have much more in common than did their respective parents or grandparents. In the intervening seventy years, global media, global technology, global trade and an increasing synchronization of global crisis events has only served to intensify global culture.

This means that Generation Omega will not be merely the next American generation, they will be the next generation on the world stage. And, given the intrinsically global nature of their generational challenges, they are likely to be the first truly global generation. Uninhibited by dysfunctional tribal and national boundaries, they will connect with their peers based strictly on what works. Unlike every previous period in human history where the kind, the creative and the wise have been voices in the wilderness; over the next twenty years, these voices will be able to find each other and when they do they will be able to coordinate and cooperate in ways that let them rapidly take leaps ahead of everyone else. Those who can follow will quickly realize that it is in their best interests to focus on peace rather than war. Those who don’t will simply be left behind.

No doubt this is a daunting future facing Generation Omega. Win or lose, theirs will be a generational bridge to an uncertain future. And there is no guarantee that they will navigate these challenges successfully. In fact, in all fairness, the odds are stacked firmly against them. Where we sit right now, there are many reasons to fear and only a few reasons to hope. But there are reasons to hope. Foremost among these is that Generation Omega is not yet formed. The eldest among them are not yet adolescent and the youngest are not yet born. They are still in the process of becoming who they will be and, therefore, we have an opportunity to give them the best possible chance while we still hold the reins of power.

We know what they will face. What can we do now to help them?

Photo by 1elf12

The post Introducing Generation Omega appeared first on P2P Foundation.

I was recently challenged by a friend around my model of abundance and put together this set of axioms that drive my thinking. I have no doubt that there are many other paths to thinking about abundance, but this is mine.

I.

1. Some portion of the universe is rivalrous. I’ll call this “energy”.
2. Some portion of the universe is anti-rivalrous. I’ll call this “information”.
3. It appears to be the case that information can have causal effect in only one direct way—by being “instantiated” in some energetic form.
4. All other causal relations in the universe are “mediated” by energy.

A very large amount of thinking could be done just with 1–4 above and they are far from certain. For our purposes, we will take them as axioms.

II.

5. The rivalrous operates under specific dynamics such as diminishing returns and entropy. The anti-rivalrous operates under very different dynamics such as accelerating returns and the network effect.
6. It appears, specifically, that the rivalrous (energy) is subject always to the second law of thermodynamics and heat death. But it does not appear that thermodynamic entropy has any direct impact on information.
7. As a consequence of these dynamics, the universe appears to consist of three different fundamental system dynamics.

7a. Those that are dominated by the dynamics of energy—these are linear systems characterized by the principle of least energy (e.g., a falling rock, a lightning bolt, a salt crystal, etc.)

7b. Those that are dominated by the dynamics of information—these are exponential systems.

7c. Those that are a mix of energetic and informational dynamics—these are dissipative structures characterized by S-curves and the principles of maximum fitness (i.e., all the laws of evolution).

III.

8. Dissipative structures are the result of energetic systems accessing and “taking advantage” of informational dynamics. All things being equal, the more a dissipative structure participates in / accesses information dynamics, the more bang for the buck it will get (the more fitness for energy input) and, therefore, the more fit it will tend to be.

8a. This is the fundamental driving the emergence of sensory cells, neural anatomy, complex neurology, etc. Each case is an example of an expansion of the capacity of dissipative structures to access and take advantage of information dynamics.

9. The emergence of novel capacities to operate in and with the “information domain” is one of the dominant structures of the arc of evolution writ large.

9a. Each such emergence appears to generate what is called a “portal pathway” in the evolutionary fitness landscape—an almost one-way ticket to a “higher order” fitness landscape. For example, the emergence of multi-cellularity was a portal pathway. While multi-cellular organisms continue to co-exist with single cell organisms—they effectively are no longer in competition with them. Similarly, the emergence of technical civilization was a portal pathway. While contemporary humans continue to co-exist with chimpanzees and lions—they effectively are no longer in competition with them.

10. Portal pathways are called this because while it is certainly possible for an emergent fitness landscape to “fall apart” and transition to some other set of dynamics, it has never so far occurred that the novel capacities that unlocked the portal pathway have been entirely lost. Accordingly, any future fitness landscape takes into account these new capacities and their relatively dominant effectiveness in comparison to prior regimes.

IV.

11. An examination of a very large number of metrics including population, energy consumption, CO2 production, information production, etc. indicates that something occurred somewhere around the 15th or 16th Century in the world that represents some kind of portal pathway.
12. Per the logic of 7c and part III, the historical effectiveness of this portal pathway is that it was able to more effectively access and take advantage of information dynamics than all previous eras.
13. A very large number of human dynamics (interpersonal relationships, violence, individual psychological assumptions and habits, family and social structures, etc.) have changed under the new “rules” of this new fitness landscape.

V.

14. The hypothesis of “abundance” or a non-rivalrous economy is based upon the proposition that we are currently in the process of traversing a new portal pathway into a system that is even more able to access and take advantage of information dynamics than has been available under the 15th—20th Century regime.
15. Under the abundance hypothesis, we are near or past a tipping point between a legacy system that has been dominated by the “rivalrous attractor” and an emergent system that is dominated by an “anti-rivalrous attractor”.
16. The deep insight of this transition consists of two elements.

16a. It is possible in principle for a sufficiently mature abundant economy to provision comprehensive wellbeing for every agent in the system. More on this later.

16b. Because of the nature of information dynamics, the movement toward provisioning comprehensive wellbeing is synergistic. That is, as more people are more fulfilled, the capacity of the system to provide more fulfillment to more people increases.

Note. While the abundance hypothesis establishes a firm direction on the evolution of the system from this point forward, it is difficult to predict the timeframe associated with the amelioration of the legacy consequences of the rivalrous attractor and the rollout of accelerating wellbeing.

It is possible that the synergistic effects of abundance (16b) are ramifying which would result in “accelerating returns” and a relatively rapid acceleration from legacy systems that evolved under a dominant rivalrous regime to new systems that optimize for anti-rivalrous dynamics.

For example, given our understandings of developmental psychology we might imagine that the longer a person has been alive and adapted to the rivalrous attractor, the harder it will be for them to adapt to the anti-rivalrous attractor and the more that they will inhibit the rollout of the abundance economy.

Thus, if we imagine *only* a vector where the ability to operate with anti-rivalrous dynamics is pushing against psychological plasticity and legacy inertia, it seems likely that a comprehensive transition of the entire species could take as long as eight generations.

But, of course, while it is implausible to imagine billions of people making significant moves into an “abundance mindset” under current constraints, it is trivial to imagine new capacities that could deliver on this potential.

For example, lets imagine that in 90 years we are 1000X more capable at directly influencing neuro-cognitive states in a long-term and sustainable way.

Looking back over the last 90 years, and projecting forward accelerating change, this is a perfectly plausible hypothesis. In this circumstance, we could imagine that every human’s subjective experience of wellbeing would be largely decoupled from their actual physical environment. The presence or absence of mates, food, etc., would be as irrelevant as the actual outside temperature to an air conditioned resident of Houston, Texas. This obviously raises its own issues—but the key point is that these are entirely new and different issues. Legacy rivalrousness and legacy human developmental plasticity is no longer a driving consideration.

Photo by Barbara Gilhooly

The post The Axiomatics of Abundance appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In a nutshell, as no other has the Trump media campaign sensed the end of the era neoliberal globalization, and to use the new p2p media and micro-targeting to bring manipulative communication and propaganda to new heights.

The article also explains the very radical attempt to destroy both Old Media and the Deep State, which it sees as it enemies, along with the Blue Church, it is the rights movement that created new equalities that made neoliberalism palatable.

The article also suggests that classic resistance strategies are unlikely to succeed, and that new instances of collective intelligence will be necessary in the counter-offensive.

In this particular sense, what Jordan Greenhall proposes is very congruent with the approach of the P2P Foundation.

We must not abandon prefigurative politics but strengthen and speed them up, while seeking connection with the huge defensive mobilizations that will emerge as a counter-reaction.

In 2015, I took a swing at assessing the shape and state of our global challenges. Looking back, that essay is still well worth a read, but it is high time for an update.

While many things have changed in the world in the past two years, 2016 saw what looks like a phase transition in the political domain. While the overall phenomenon is global in scale and includes Brexit and other movements throughout Europe, I want to focus specifically on the victory of the “Trump Insurgency” and drill down into detail on how this state change will play out.

I use John Robb’s term “Trump Insurgency” here to highlight the fact that the election of 2016 was not an example of “ordinary politics”. Anyone who fails to understand this is going to be making significant errors. For example, the 2016 election is not comparable to the 2000 election (e.g., merely a “close” election) nor to the 1980 election (e.g., an “ideological transition” election). While it is tempting to compare it to 1860, I’m not sure that is a good match either.

In fact, as I go back and try to do pattern matching, the only real pattern I can find is the 1776 “election” (AKA the American Revolution). In other words, while 2016 still formally looked like politics, what is really going on here is a revolutionary war. For now this is war using memes rather than bullets, but war is much more than a metaphor.

This war is about much more than ideology, money or power. Even the participants likely do not fully understand the stakes. At a deep level, we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between two entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective intelligence”. This is a deep point and will likely be confusing. So I’m going to take it slow and below will walk through a series of “fronts” of the war that I see playing out over the next several years. This is a pretty tactical assessment and should make sense and be useful to anyone. I’ll get to the deep point last — and will be going way out there in an effort to grasp “what is really going on”. I’ll definitely miss wildly, but with any luck, the total journey will be worth the time.

Own the battlefield, own the war.

Front One: Communications Infrastructure.

All modern warfighters know that the first step of any conflict is to disrupt the enemy’s communications and control infrastructure.

Our legacy sensemaking system was largely composed of and dominated by a small set of communications channels. These included the largest newspapers (e.g., NYT and Washington Post) and television networks (e.g., CNN, CBS, Fox, etc.). Until very recently, effectively all sensemaking was mediated by these channels and, as a consequence, these channels delivered a highly effective mechanism for coordinated messaging and control. A sizable fraction of the power, influence and effectiveness of the last-stage power elites (e.g., the neocon alliances in both the Democratic and Republican parties) was due to their mastery at utilizing these legacy channels.

It is important for anyone planning in the contemporary environment to recognize that the activities of the Trump Insurgency are entirely different to all previous actors. Rather than endeavoring to establish control over the legacy infrastructure, the Trump Insurgency is in the process of destroying it entirely and replacing it with a very different architecture. One that is intrinsically compatible with its own form of collective intelligence.

It is clear to me that the Insurgency is engaged in “total war”. They are simultaneously attacking the legacy power structures on multiple fronts (access, business viability and, in particular, legitimacy) while innovating entirely novel approaches to the problem of large scale communications and control (e.g., direct tweets from POTUS). Their intent is not to play with or even dominate the legacy media — but to eliminate them from the field entirely and to replace them with something else altogether.

This approach is strategically optimal. The Trump Insurgency represents a novel model of collective intelligence in general. It is the first truly viable approach that is connected directly with the emergent decentralized attractor that has been driving technical/economic disruption for the last several decades. This form of governance is structurally incompatible with the legacy media architecture. It is intrinsically dissonant with the kind of top-down, slow, controlled, synchronized approach of the old media. It therefore both must dismantle this architecture and replace it with one that is in synch with its mode of operation and, thereby, benefits massively by hamstringing any collective intelligence that works in the old top-down fashion (i.e., all existing forces currently at play).

To use a concept from Gilles Deleuze, the Trump Insurgency is a nomadic war machine and it is in the process of smoothing the space of communication. To use a simpler metaphor, if you imagine the Trump Insurgency as highly effective desert guerrillas, they are currently in the process of turning everything into a desert. The Establishment, optimized for “jungle conflict”, is going to have a hard time.

From where I sit, it seems evident that the Insurgency’s ability to read-plan-react (their “OODA loop”) is simply of a higher order than the legacy power structures. For at least the past 18 months, the Insurgency has been running circles around the the Establishment and the old media. Accordingly, I fully expect the Insurgency to win this fight. Specifically, for all functional purposes, I expect the memetic efficacy of the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, MSNBC and related channels to be near zero within the next two to four years. I would not be surprised to see several of these entities actually out of business.

Note, the relative position of “new media” such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube is harder to predict. I suspect that most of the important conflict of this front will take place here. Right now, all of new media is controlled by forces broadly opposed to the Insurgency. Yet the Insurgency must establish dominance on this territory. They can accomplish this either by capturing these existing platforms (aka “bend the knee” capitulation) or by moving the center of power to new platforms that are aligned with the Insurgency (e.g., gab.ai replacing Twitter). If you think that this latter is highly unlikely, I strongly urge you to reexamine your models and assumptions.

My sense is that the decisive decision in this conflict is whether the “new media” remain coupled to the legacy power structures (and their OODA loops) or decouple and enter into a direct conflict for “decentralized supremacy” (see my last point below). If they choose the former, they will lose. If they choose the latter, the outcome is hard to predict.

Front Two: The Deep State

In ordinary politics, an elected candidate is expected to integrate with and make relatively small fine-tuning changes to the existing state apparatus and the mass of career bureaucrats that make up most of the actual machinery of government (AKA the “deep state”). Thus, while the Obama Administration might differ quite significantly from the Bush Administration in political theory and intent, the actual impact of theses differences on the real trajectory of the “ship of state” is relatively small.

My assessment is that the Trump Insurgency has identified the Deep State itself as its central antagonist and is engaged in a direct existential conflict with it.

Normally this would be an easy win for the Deep State. However, I expect this front to be the most challenging, uncertain and dangerous of the war. The Deep State is massive, has access to vast resources and capabilities and has been in the business of controlling power for decades. But two things are moving in the Insurgency’s favor.

First, the Deep State appears to be fragmented. For example, the “Russian Hacking” scenario of the past two months looks surprisingly uncoordinated and incompetent. I don’t know exactly what is going on here, but it is clearly not the product of a unified and smoothly operating Deep State.

Second, it seems highly likely that the Deep State is prepared to fight “the last war” while the Insurgency is bringing an entirely different kind of fight. The Deep State developed in and for the 20th Century. You might say that they are experts at fighting Trench Warfare. But this is the 21st Century and the Insurgency has innovated Blitzkrieg.

Let’s take a look at the “fake news” meme for example. This has all the earmarks of a Deep State initiative. Carefully planned, highly coordinated, coming from all authoritative directions, strategically targeted. My read is that this was a Deep State response to the Communications Infrastructure fight. But it looks like this initiative has not only failed, but that the Insurgency has been able to leverage its decisive OODA loop advantages to turn the entire thing around and make “fake news” its own tool. How? By moving rapidly, unconventionally, in a very decentralized fashion and with complete commitment to victory.

If my read is correct, the balance of the struggle between the Deep State and the Insurgency will be determined by how quickly the Deep State can dispense with old and dysfunctional doctrine and innovate novel approaches that are adequate to the war. In other words, is this the Western Front (France falling in six weeks) or the Eastern Front (the USSR bleeding and giving ground until it could innovate a new war machine that could outcompete the Wehrmacht).

If my read of the situation is correct (which, of course, it very well may not be), then the Deep State would be ill advised indeed to undertake any major efforts in the next 12–24 months. For example, an “impeach Trump” initiative, would almost certainly be an enormous strategic disaster. In spite of the apparent strength of the Deep State, the Insurgency’s superior OODA loop would likely result in an Insurgency victory in this fight — and victory here would greatly strengthen the Insurgency’s position. (Can you say “Emperor Trump?)

From the opposite direction, the Insurgency would be well advised to Blitzkrieg. Right now it has the advantage of an approach and a model that its opponent doesn’t understand and can’t react to effectively. But the Deep State is deep. Given time it could learn how to win this fight. If the Insurgency wants to win, it needs to radically reduce the Deep State’s strategic agency quickly. This means moving fast and moving decisively.

I cannot overstate how deeply dangerous this fight is. Classically, when a long-standing hegemony (cf “Pax Americana) is weakened and distracted by intra-elite conflict, rivals like Russia and China will see an opportunity to move from a hegemonic to a multi-polar world and can be tempted into adventurism. In these conditions, even the slightest mistake can push the system into nearly catastrophic conflict.

Front Three: Globalism

Anti-globalist rhetoric was one of the most enduring and central features of the Trump campaign. Indeed, if Trump clearly stood for anything, resisting the “false song of globalism” was it. And all evidence in the post-election environment is that the Trump Insurgency will indeed be actively anti-globalist.

What is flat out astounding is the relative ease with which Trump has been able to cut through globalist Gordian Knots. For half a decade, the Trans-Pacific Partnership was an unstoppable juggernaut. Until, that is, Trump decided to end it. Perhaps this is evidence of a “below the surface” weakness that made TPP a paper tiger. Perhaps it is evidence of the relative balance of power between nationalist and globalist institutions. At least when the nationalist institution is the United States. (Compare the Greeks vis a vis the EU). Perhaps it is evidence of a larger scale anti-globalist conflict that has been raging for nearly a decade and has been surfacing all over the place (Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, etc.).

In any event, it is a significant victory and I am certain that it will embolden the Insurgency. At this point, I expect the Insurgency to cut deep into globalist power institutions (the World Bank, the UN, various treaty organizations) and, more importantly, globalist-allied national institutions like the Federal Reserve. The Globalists have an odd connection to power. Generally, they must move through influence and threat to elites, with a non-trivial amount of mass level propaganda to smooth the way. The Insurgency is broadly immune to globalist propaganda, the Insurgency elites seem unlikely to play ball with globalist elites or to back down under threat. At this point, I see only two real moves available to the globalists. 1) economic destabilization hoping to turn “the people” against the Insurgency; 2) some kind of some kind of social/military destabilization.

But I don’t give the globalists much of a chance. Of all of the major world powers, only the EU is currently dominated by globalists, and with the victory of Brexit and the surge of nationalism in France, the Netherlands, etc., even the Eurocrats are on the run.

By moving quickly and decisively against the Deep State allies of globalism at home and erecting nationalist resilience to global institutional influence (e.g, high tariffs and protectionist monetary policy), combined with shaping a narrative that points all bad economic news directly at globalists, the Insurgency might well be able to cut most globalist power off at the knees.

Notably, even large multi-national corporations — until recently appearing to be pulling the strings of political policy — seem to be rapidly capitulating to the Insurgency. The two major globalist forces that have not yet been publicly tested are the energy companies and the banks. What will happen here remains to be seen. A cynic might suggest that the Insurgency itself is only superficially populist and in fact really simply represents the interests of Energy and Banks against other elites. That cynic might be right, we shall see.

The net-net result of this front will be a significant weakening of the post-War global institutional order and a rebalancing of power along not yet fully understood nationalist alignments. It is not clear what effect this change will have. For example, one might expect “global scale” issues like climate disruption or terrorism to lose focus and efficacy — but that isn’t clear. It is certainly plausible that nation-to-nation alliances can make significant forward progress in even these areas of interest. Particularly if you assume that globalist agendas were extracting value from global scale crises rather than resolving them.

Moreover, there is no reason to believe that a multi-polar nationalism will be less stable over the long term than a hegemony. History has certainly cut both ways. Perhaps what is most clear is this: the period of transition as globalist forces struggle to maintain power while nationalist forces are not yet in any form of stable equilibrium with each-other is a moment (possibly lasting years) of extreme danger.

Bacteria developing antibiotic resistance.

Front Four: The New Culture War

Last week, Reddit user notjafo expressed something important. It is worth reading his entire post, but the gist is this: the left won the culture war of the 1960’s — 1990’s. And the Trump Insurgency does not represent “the next move” of the old right in that old war. It represents the first move of an emergent new culture. One that is directly at war with the “Blue Church” on the ground of culture itself.

“The Blue Church is panicking because they’ve just witnessed the birth of a new Red Religion. Not the tired old Christian cliches they defeated back in the ’60s, but a new faith based on cultural identity and outright rejection of the Blue Faith.” — /u/notjfao

While I can nit pick at some of his analysis, broadly speaking I agree. As of 2016, the shoe is on the other foot — the counter culture has become the mainstream and the Insurgents are the new counter culture.

Similar to the other battles, this Culture War front is characterized by a distinction between a more powerful and established Blue team organized around and fighting “the last war” and a Red team still in flux but beginning to figure out how to fight from the future. And, as per the other fronts, until the Blue team figures this out, it will continue to lose ground without understanding why.

In this case, however, the superior OODA loop of the Insurgency is only part of the strategic shift. Of far more importance is the fact that the Insurgency evolved within a culture broadly dominated by the values and techniques of the Blue Church and therefore, by simple natural selection, is now almost entirely immune to the total set of “Blue critique”.

In other words, if we map the arc of the culture war from the 1950’s through to the 1990’s we will see the slow emergence of a set of strategies, techniques and alliances on the part of the emerging Blue Church that became increasingly perfected and effective over time. For example, the critical power of the epithets “racist” or “sexist” which had little or no traction in the 1930’s and 1940’s had, by the 1990’s become decisive.

Yet, even as the Blue Church was achieving dominance, the roots of the Insurgency were being laid. And, like bacteria becoming increasingly immune to an antibiotic after constant exposure, those aspects of the emergent “Red Religion” that were able to survive at all began to coalesce and expand. What has now erupted into the zeitgeist is something new and almost completely immune to the rhetorical and political techniques of the Blue Church. To call an adherent of the Red Religion “racist” is unlikely to elicit much more than a “kek” and a derisive dismissal. The old weapons have no more sting.

Moreover, the Red Religion does not intend to engage the Blue Church in any way other than “outright rejection.” It considers the Church and its adherents to be acting in bad faith by default and the doctrines of the Church to be little more than a form of mental illness. Accordingly, the Red Religion has no intention of dialogue, conversation or even sharing power with the Church.

The Blue Church should expect to meet the Red Religion in war. And in this conflict the Red Religion has the advantage.

In the nature of every movement that has endured the crucible of selection, the Red Religion is much more coherent and focused than the dominant Church which is criss-crossed with internal conflict and in-fighting. The Red Religion was born into and optimized for new media (e.g, optimized for memes rather than films) and as the balance of power shifts from 20th Century media to 21st Century media, this inures to the advantage of the Reds. Going deeper, even as the Red Religion has developed an immunity to most of the primary techniques of the Blue Church, it has simultaneously developed its own memetic/values structure connected with deep human values that stem from ancient “tribal selection” and are highly attractive to the portions of the human family (men and women) who are focused on protecting and defending their tribe (hence the Red Religions’ intrinsic focus on Nationalism).

In other words, over the short to mid term, most of the humans who are best prepared to wage war — who are most attuned to and psychologically ready for war — will be attracted to the Red Religion. They will be focused, almost entirely immune to the entire portfolio of Blue weapons and they will be armed with and optimized for 21st Century techniques of waging culture war.

As a consequence, the result of this conflict will almost certainly be fatal for the Blue Church. We are already witnessing it, in the form of both an increasingly desperate “doubling down” on obviously impotent attacks and a creeping demoralization within the fabric of the Church. I expect to see this accelerate and as the Insurgency wins on other fronts, the set of alliances that hold the Church together will begin to unravel and the Church will collapse.

The sooner that happens, the better it will be for everyone.

Right now, the Church is killing us. While it is holding many important, necessary values, it is also holding a ton of stuff that is deeply dysfunctional. But by monopolizing the instruments of culture and power, it inhibits us like a well meaning but overbearing parent from being able to form the new innovations in culture, practice and value that are necessary to our age. The collapse of the Blue Church is going to lead to a level of “cultural flux” that will make the 1960’s look like the Eisenhower administration. As the Church falls away, the “children of Blue” will explode out in a Cambrian explosion and reach out to engage in all out culture war with the still nascent Red Religion.

This Culture War will be unlike anything we have ever seen. It will take place everywhere all at once, constrained less by geography than by technical platform and by the complex relationship between innovation and power on an exponential technology curve. It will be a struggle over not just the content, but the very sense and nature of identity, meaning and purpose. It will mutate so quickly and will evolve so rapidly that all of our legacy techniques (both psychological and institutional) for making sense of and responding to the world will melt into so much tapioca. This will be terrifying. It is also the source of our best hope.

Bacteria developing antibiotic resistance.

The War for Collective Intelligence

If you’ve made it this far (or chose to skip directly here), take a breath and settle in. This is the interesting part. For that precious few who prioritize understanding over brevity, what follows will make much more sense if you have read my Foundational Assumptions, The Coming Great Transition, Introducing Generation Omega and The Future of Organization.

For those who want the tldr, it is this: we live in a non-linear world, stop thinking linearly.

Once you have accepted this as the task, you will eventually come to an important conclusion: you can’t. By yourself, you can’t think non-linearly. This isn’t your fault. Individual human beings can’t think non-linearly. Only “collective intelligences,” those agents of “inter-subjective consciousness” can. To put it more simply, we implement and do things as individuals. We innovate as tribes. And the world we live in today — the world of the 21st Century — is a world of continuous innovation.

In this environment, for the first time ever in history, the ability to innovate is decisively superior to the ability to deploy power. Prior to today, the rule of “the battle goes to whoever gets there the first with the most” was a decent rule of thumb. Of course, this has never been strictly the case. Most of the great stories of history are built around moments of innovation where the smarter but less powerful group was able to outwit and undermine their opponent with superior technique, technology and strategy. Over time the balance has slowly but consistently moved in the direction of innovation. Ask Turing and Oppenheimer about the accelerating pace of innovation as it relates to war.

The conflict of the 21st Century is about forming a Collective Intelligence that can outwit and out innovate all of its competitors. The central challenge is to innovate a way of collaborating and cohering individuals that maximally deploys their individual perspectives, capabilities, understandings and insights with each-other. Right now, the Insurgency has the edge. It has discovered some key ways to tap into the power of decentralized collective intelligence and this is its principal advantage. While it is definitely not a mature version of a decentralized collective intelligence, it is substantially more so than any collective intelligence with which it is competing and unless and until a more effective decentralized collective intelligence enters the field, this advantage is enough.

Like all wars, the shape of this particular conflict will be highly dependent on path, timing and surprise. Right now, for example, the relative difference in power between the Establishment and the Insurgency is large, and while it continues to lose it’s impact, power still matters. At the same time, while the Insurgency has a meaningful advantage in “collective intelligence” this advantage is not overwhelming. Thus the details of the situation that I describe above.

So, for example, if the Deep State uses its power advantage as a way to stall until until it can innovate a collective intelligence advantage, it has a decent chance. (Of course, becoming a decentralized collective intelligence is going to be really hard for the actual individuals who make up the Deep State to understand and accept.)

But watch out as the conflict evolves. As the Insurgency cuts down and unplugs legacy power structures (e.g, the media, the intelligence agencies) and replaces them with more fluid and innovative approaches (e.g., gab.ai and Palantir) the balance will begin to tip quickly. If the Establishment cannot stave off the Insurgency in the next 4–5 years, that phase of the war will be over.

Then the real question. Does the Insurgency and the Red Religion represent a stable attractor in the 21st Century. Can it form a collective intelligence that is able to select-against and out-compete all comers. If so, what does this look like? My sense is that this is ultimately a highly unstable state. While tribalism (nationalism) can be very potent in the short term, it is ultimately a deeply unstable ship to navigate the oceans of the future.

Or is there a different timeline where one of the “children of Blue” discovers an approach that is more intelligent still — one that is more fit to ride the wave of exponential technology and global scale crisis? One that is more fully in line with the true nature of inter-subjective consciousness? One that can scale without losing its coherence? One that is adequate to the whole set of existential challenges of the 21st Century?

Such an eventuality is certainly possible — although the most robust collective intelligence is likely to be more purple than red or blue. How likely? Well, right now I think we have a decent chance but really do believe that the die will be cast in the next 3–5 years.

For those who want to take action, I have three recommendations:

1. The Blue Church, the Deep State, the Old Media and all the other aspects of the Establishment are holding you back. Free your mind. This is going to be much harder than it sounds. For most people, if you are under 40, your entire development has taken place within the context of the Blue Church. Many of your deepest assumptions and unconscious values are going to have to be examined with brutal honesty and courage.
2. All Collective Intelligence is gated by Sensemaking. Right now, our collective sensemaking systems are in complete disarray. We don’t know who or what to trust. We barely even know how. Find ways to improve your individual sensemaker and collaborate on collective sensemaking systems. This should get easier as the old media and the Blue Church collapse.
3. Both #1 and #2 require other people. And, since all of our old ways of collaborating with other people are either suspect or obsolete, you are going to have to learn how to build real faithful relationships the old fashioned way. Get much better at making friends. I don’t mean casual acquaintances. And I definitely don’t mean social network contacts. I mean the kinds of people who ready willing and able to actually care for you — even at risk to themselves. Not because of shared ideology or even shared mission, but because of the deep stuff of human commitment.

Good luck.

Note from the author:[Note: this was published in Deep Code and is intended to be challenging and to move the conversation forward. Comments that are thoughtful and contribute will be greatly appreciated. Comments that are not will be deleted.]

Photo by herae30

The post How to counter the radical counter-revolution of the Trump Insurgency appeared first on P2P Foundation.

One of the biggest challenges to the Basic Income movement has been answering the question, “where do the funds come from”? After all, even a basic income of a mere $5,000 per year for every American adult carries a bill of $1.2 Trillion dollars a year — or just about a third of the entire Federal budget! Whether you propose to raise taxes, or to cut back on other governmental expenses to pay this bill, you will find a lot of well defended skepticism.

Recently, however, I was introduced to a nice model by futurist Kartik Gada that quite neatly cuts this gordian knot: let technology pay for it.

In a painstaking analysis, Gada drills down on the insight that economists have entirely missed a crucial feature of the modern world called “technological deflation”. While the concept is nuanced, the basic point of technological deflation is that technological things (like, say, iPhones) have the funny habit of becoming “almost free” very quickly. Remember that fancy new iPhone 6 you bought for $600 back in 2013? How much is it worth now? Well, today if you are so inclined, you can get a brand-new one for $150. One fourth the cost in three short years. Remember, we aren’t talking about buying a used iPhone 6, these are brand new. In another two years, you’d be hard pressed to give one of these away.

You don’t see this kind of price deflation everywhere. In fact, in our modern society, we tend to expect to see prices rise over time. Oranges, for example, cost more today than they cost in 2012. Same with milk. A new Eames Chair from Knoll costs a solid $5,000. The same chair brand new cost a mere $310 in 1956. And if you want to ask “how much is that in today’s dollars” you are hitting the point: we are so very used to inflation that we intuitively think of the money itself as different. And yet, a brand new iPhone 6 today costs only one fourth as much as the same phone three years ago. Technological things are, quite vigorously, swimming against the inflationary current.

Gada took note of this fact and then went deeper. He noticed that no economist seemed to be considering technological deflation in their models of national or global economies. This is because, up until relatively recently, technological deflation wasn’t that important. But today, with more than 2% of the global economy subject to technological deflation, the effects are too big to ignore.

In fact, he argues that that it is precisely this force of technological deflation that is frustrating global central bank’s efforts to drive inflation through things like negative interest rates and “quantitative easing”. The banks are trying like crazy to inflate the economy on one end, but technology is deflating out the other end even faster.

Moreover, Gada observes that this trend is growing. In 1992, rapidly deflating technologies made up about 0.5% of world GDP, 1% in 2004 and it stands today at 2%. Consider how many consumer electronics devices have been stuffed into that rapidly deflating iPhone.

And with things like self-driving cars, 3D printers and AI just over the horizon, more and more of the economy is going to become subject to rapid technological deflation.

This is a deep point. No existing economic model knows how to deal with the accelerating pull of technological deflation.

But Gada has a recommendation. And for folks who have been following Basic Income, it is a doozie. He recommends that by far the best, and perhaps the only, way to deal with technological deflation is to counteract its pull with a large and rapidly growing guaranteed income to every adult citizen.

How large? Well, he reckons that right now in late 2016, the right number would be $5,000 a year per US citizen. Which is nice, but the real kicker comes when he looks at how quickly this stipend would have to grow just to keep pace with technological deflation. The answer? About 20% a year.

For those who can’t be bothered with math, at an annual growth rate of 20%, this Basic Income would build to $25,000 a year by 2025 and over $100,000 a year by the early 2030’s. You heard that right, Gada is proposing a model that will be guaranteeing a cool $100,000 a year to every citizen of the United States in around 15 years. Not just guaranteed, but absolutely necessary to keep the overall inflation rate above zero.

And just so we are clear — this Basic Income doesn’t come at the cost of debasing the currency or hyperinflation. It is not like we are going to be giving everyone $100,000 a year but at the cost of driving the price of a gallon of milk to $50,000. No, precisely because the rate of the Basic Income is calculated to counterbalance the force of technological deflation, under this plan, we should expect the price of a gallon of milk in 2030 to be maybe $5.

In other words, if he is right (and I suspect that he is), we have closed the loop. Technological unemployment and technological deflation are directly connected and perfectly resolved through a unconditional Universal Basic Income.

This provides a big piece of the path path over the next 15 years from scarcity to abundance. It doesn’t solve the whole problem, we still have a bunch of work to do, but it sure helps.

Sound interesting? Don’t take my word for it. Gada published the entire book here. It is a site that only a wonk could love, but if you want to drill-down drill away.

Photo by Baron Reznik, CC-BY-NY-SA-2.0

The post An exciting new idea in Basic Income appeared first on P2P Foundation.