Hi David, you will like the new thesis from Nicolas Mendoza about precisely this topic, i.e. the crucial importance of buddhist approaches to enrich the p2p movement. Write me an email, I’ll put you in touch.

Michel

the chances are
western tradition will reinvent a new methodology to explore this realm of subjective meaning
(i am part of that)
but sadly it will probably not acknowledge the authority of eastern heritage

wouldn’t it be wiser
and humanistically more ethical
(and indeed socially pragmatic given the stresses of our time)
to observe and test what other cultures already provide…?

i am tired of western dudes constantly reinventing things
like the scientists who invent new genetic forms of crop
without due credit to the native strains from which they are derived

And it would be interesting to look back the flows of money into cathedrals, mosques and synagogues: the degree to which people have long been willing to invest in meaning, outside any form of visible consumption of goods and services.

Meaning has long produced a “value add”.

What Safa’s text suggests is that it will become an increasingly large part of the turnover of the economy, and possibly start to detach itself from goods, services, and information. Such an economic shift would allow GDP to continue to grow, without increasing pressure on the planet. Like information, meaning is weightless, and takes very little energy (most of it human) to produce and transmit.