{"id":1384,"date":"2010-11-19T19:02:20","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T01:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2010-11-20T17:03:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T23:03:20","slug":"improved-communications-technologies-techniques-personal-organizational-methodological-discipline-historic-social-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/?p=1384","title":{"rendered":"A Major Historical Threshold or A Tragically Missed Opportunity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Formerly titled “Improved Communications Technologies & Techniques + Personal, Organizational & Methodological Discipline = Historic Social Change”).<\/p>\n

For those who are serious about working for social progress based on reason and goodwill, despite the\u00a0momentary resurgence of regressive\u00a0\u201cPolitical Fundamentalism\u201d<\/a>, the confluence of factors is currently conducive to a major paradigm shift.\u00a0The power of decentralized mass media (“social media”), combined with improvements in our knowledge of \u00a0relevant disciplines (e.g., cognitive science, microeconomics and game theory, learning theory, complex dynamical systems analysis, network analysis, epistemology and epidemiology, evolutionary ecology, etc.),\u00a0as a tool for intentional and potentially revolutionary social change, is\u00a0a theme which requires the weaving together of several separate threads\u00a0of thought I’ve been developing on this blog.<\/p>\n

I’ve posted previously about the processes of cultural evolution and revolution, involving “memes,” groups of memes called “paradigms,” and the revolutionary effects of the accumulation of anomalous memes within a paradigm, leading to “paradigm shifts” (The Politics of Consciousness<\/a>). And I’ve continued that theme down several avenues, including a discussion of the acceleration of the cultural evolution effectuated by two products of that evolution itself:\u00a0scientific methodology, and evolving communications and data processing technologies (Information and Energy: Past, Present, and Future<\/a>, The Nature-Mind-Machine Matrix<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In another, related,\u00a0series of posts, I’ve\u00a0written about the power of decentralization for liberating and mobilizing “the genius of the many” (a term for evolving decentralized but coherent sets of memes and paradigms)\u00a0to an extent never before possible (Wikinomics: The Genius of the Many Unleashed<\/a>, Tuesday Briefs: The Anti-Empathy Movement & \u201cCrowdfunding\u201d<\/a>, Counterterrorism: A Model of Centralized Decentralization<\/a>), itself a product of the processes discussed in the “human social evolutionary\u00a0ecology” series. (See also http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html<\/a>). And in two series of posts largely unrelated to these, I discussed the importance of creating a methodology akin to that of science or law for disciplining the development of political beliefs (Ideology v. Methodology<\/a>,\u00a0A Proposal<\/a>, The Elusive Truth<\/a>), and the importance of each of us truly committed to social change becoming equally committed to individual change, adopting a personal discipline that will make us the most capable and compelling of messengers (\u201cMessaging\u201d From The Heart of Many Rather Than The Mouth of Few<\/a>). There are some posts, as well,\u00a0which combine these latter two themes to some extent (The Foundational Progressive Agenda<\/a>, The Voice Beyond Extremes<\/a>, The Ultimate Political Challenge<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But, though these disciplines and methodologies, to some extent yet to be developed, are the key to robust sustainable social progress,\u00a0we do not have to invent either the products or procedures of reason applied to politics from scratch. We have the academic disciplines I listed above (as well as all others) to draw on. I hope that some of my posts have helped to\u00a0disseminate\u00a0a\u00a0glimpse\u00a0of their\u00a0relevant fruits, which is as much as any of us can unilaterally accomplish\u00a0(e.g.,\u00a0The Economic Debate We\u2019re Not Having <\/a>, The Real Deficit <\/a>, The Restructuring of the American and Global Economy <\/a>, The More Subtle & Salient Economic Danger We Currently Face<\/a>,\u00a0A comprehensive overview of the immigration issue<\/a>, Real Education Reform<\/a>, The Most Vulnerable Americans<\/a>, The Vital Role of Child, Family, and Community Services<\/a>).<\/p>\n

“The genius of the many” extends the concept of division and coordination of labor to the development of human consciousness; the ecology of memes that transcends the individuals whose brains are\u00a0its physical medium (see\u00a0The Evolutionary Ecology of Audio-Visual Entertainment (& the nested & overlapping subsystems of Gaia)<\/a>. A simple example of the genius of the many is that if a thousand random people guess the number of jelly beans in a jar, the mean of their guesses will be closer to the correct number than any individual guess, including the one made by the most mathematically capable of doing so.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the far-right, relying on caricatures of reality, reduces all progressive thought to a hierarchical top-down “statism,” whereas the philosophy I am espousing is just the opposite: A coordinated bottom-up aggregation. The far-right, conversely, advocates for a tyranny of the lowest common denominator, never mobilizing more genius than the least informed among them is already in possession of, and imposing that state of relative ignorance on all of us in the form of information-stripped public policy.<\/p>\n

One academic discipline not only informs the progressive policies we should be seeking to design and implement, but also the challenge of bringing more people on board in\u00a0the effort to design and implement them. George Lakoff, in The Political Mind<\/em>, explores the underlying metaphors upon which our minds are structured, the differences between conservative and progressive metaphors, and the techniques of messaging that should be employed to activate the narratives of empathy that exist compartmentalized in almost every\u00a0mind –including conservatives’ minds– in advocacy of progressive policies. Combined with other advances in cognitive sciences (e.g., Evolutionary Psychology, such as espoused\u00a0by Stephen Pinker in\u00a0The Language Instinct<\/em> and How The Mind Works; <\/em>Semiotics; Frame Analysis), this body of thought provides an encouraging foundation for accelerating the reproductive success of progressive memes and, by doing so, the coming paradigm shift that will favor them.<\/p>\n

If enough of us dedicate ourselves to these personal, organizational, and procedural disciplines, utilizing to as great and effective an extent as possible these new decentralized media of mass communications, then the power of that movement will be unstoppable. I have frequently quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. (“The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice”) and John Maynard Keynes (“[People] will do the rational thing, but only after exploring all other alternatives”) as a reminder that the momentum of history is on our side. Bigotry and various forms of violence (including institutionalized mutual indifference, and politically organized ignorance) keep rearing their heads and wreaking havoc in the short run, but they are not what defines the historical progression of humanity, which has, overall, been characterized by gradual, inconstant, unequally distributed gains in\u00a0both prosperity and social justice (and though sustainability has still been woefully insufficiently addressed, there are indications that the momentum of reason\u00a0will favor it as well, though whether in time to avert disaster remains to be seen).<\/p>\n

Those of us who strive to be\u00a0reasonable people of goodwill are the ones with the wind of time at our back. Those who oppose\u00a0reason and goodwill\u00a0are\u00a0the overabundant debris\u00a0resisting that wind, stinging and bruising us as we rush through and past them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here I am, conveying this matrix of interrelated memes, this paradigm, on a blog, and on Facebook, utilizing the very media that\u00a0form one component of what I am discussing, in order to discuss it, to disseminate the information and attempt to persuade others to do so as well, and to refine our efforts in accord with these opportunities and lessons. We can see the acceleration of innovation resulting from some of the variables described above in many spheres of life: “Chaos Theory” (aka “complex dynamical systems analysis”) and numerous non-computer-related technological advances that have resulted from it (in fields such as medicine, engineering, meteorology, etc.), fractal geometry, the internet, the computer revolution, wikis, vastly reduced economic transaction costs, vastly accelerated processes in almost every sphere of life.<\/p>\n

Social systems, which have been in so many ways so resistent to reduction through scientific methodologies (though not as <\/em><\/strong>resistant as conventional wisdom maintains),\u00a0are opened up in a variety of ways, as\u00a0themselves comprising\u00a0the quintessential\u00a0complex dynamical system, amenable to the new analytic techniques that come with that paradigm.\u00a0Social systems are a complex network of linkages and impulses across them, triggering cascading state changes among nodes and clusters of interlinked nodes, reverberating, self-amplifying, mutually reinforcing or suppressing, not unlike the brains that provide the physical medium of their\u00a0primary constituent\u00a0unit (memes, or cognitions).<\/p>\n

I am not suggesting that we now have the magic bullet, the panacea that will resolve all problems and meet all challenges. Nor am I suggesting that our efforts will suddenly yield spectacular results. Even in our accelerating world, dramatic change takes time, and is dramatic only in retrospect. Few people have recognized any non-military revolution\u00a0at the time\u00a0it has\u00a0occurred, but\u00a0they occur\u00a0nonetheless, and are marvels to behold once they become apparent.<\/p>\n

Past modern historical occidental social revolutions have been partial and cumulative: the Renaissance recovered some of the\u00a0grace and aesthetic rationality of classical Greece; the Scientific Revolution gave us a robust methodology for improving our knowledge and understanding of nature; the Industrial Revolution gave us new machines of production and distribution; the very recent and equally consequential Computer Revolution created a quantum leap forward in the speed and capacity of data processing and communication.<\/p>\n

At some point, whether now or in the\u00a0future, these accumulating revolutions will embrace aspects of social organization that have remained\u00a0thus far\u00a0elusive, advancing\u00a0with accelerating\u00a0leaps forward in the liberation and implementation of the genius of the many in service to humanity. We will look back on that threshold as we look back on those that came before, recognizing that it transformed the world to human benefit in ways that were almost unimaginable prior to it.\u00a0That inevitable threshold will\u00a0usher in\u00a0a new standard of human welfare that becomes completely taken for granted by those who enjoy it, which will be an expanding portion of humanity, both geographically and temporally. Whether that moment has come or not, it behooves those of us who want to speed its (sustainable) arrival to\u00a0work, in individually and collectively disciplined ways, using the cognitive and technological tools at our disposal, to\u00a0facilitate that transformation.<\/p>\n

The world has been changing dramatically, in cumulative and accelerating ways, and will continue to do so. But those changes have provided humanity with a mixed blessing, creating riches beyond belief to all but those born into them, but also tools of violence, oppression, and depletion and destruction of the Earth on which we depend. There are those who would like to barrel blindly forward, ravaging the Earth and prospering on the backs of the suffering of others. And there are those who want to harness the forces we are unleashing, to create the sustainable and just future that all reasonable people of goodwill should\u00a0strive for. Our ability to organize to that latter end has never been greater. Now, we have only to see if our determination\u00a0is sufficient to rise to that opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Formerly titled “Improved Communications Technologies & Techniques + Personal, Organizational & Methodological Discipline = Historic Social Change”). For those who are serious about working for social progress based on reason and goodwill, despite the\u00a0momentary resurgence of regressive\u00a0\u201cPolitical Fundamentalism\u201d, the confluence of factors is currently conducive to a major paradigm shift.\u00a0The power of decentralized mass media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[30,42,4,29,27,36],"tags":[45,958,44,953,867,404,505,59,142,949,956,952,880,502,954,946,927,503,950,947,951,60,955,948,957,400],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1406,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions\/1406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}