Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
the super-empowered angry man meme in context:

dad's a nigerian banker:  underwear man en route Detroit
dad's holding Chevron in the IRA:  twitter troll blames Obama for abyss

you own your own delusion
  

    
<There's a whole army of those guys, stewing in
the juices of social media echo chambers and mid-media propaganda
machines. Their perception is so distorted, you can't even talk to
'em.>

<I'm a relatively harmonious aggregate of cells and patterns in
a universe that is beyond my imagining... and my own lame attempts to
find meaning at a cosmic level are laughable.>

Really fine post, Jon. Thanks! 

Just one thought.  These days it's not cosmic meaning that most needs
intelligent discourse.  Rather, it's those aggregations of disharmony
(and destruction) promulgated by the usual suspects that needs to be
continually called out and engaged in the here-and-now.  
  

    
I wonder if the new focus on folk craziness is partially availability
bias, like how crime reporting makes people feel less safe no matter
where they are. People were always talking about crazy shit among
themselves but this wasn't amplified so much before.

What about young people who are reasonably sane? It seems like the
tendency towards social isolation in U.S. culture has to take a hit
when most people stay in touch (however tentatively) with all the
friends they ever met for their whole lives. Being a recluse takes
serious effort when even recluses are tapped into the chatter flow. 

Of course tribalism isn't new. Maybe geographically distributed
tribalism is newish. Immigrants sending money home is already a major
economic force and probably a lot less damaging than deluded investment
money.
  

    
I'm working on a presentation for Wednesday's Ignite Austin that says
we have the potential to grow more (globally) connected, more social
and collaborative, using the web. In fact we seem to be going there.
That doesn't mean that we're all going to be holding (virtual) hands
and signing Kumbaya, in fact having so many people communicating at
once feels pretty chaotic. So I'm not saying that it will be wonderful,
but I think that's what's happening. It'll happen at various levels
and in various communities. My colleagues and I, for instance, have
been talking about the inevitable business uses of online
social/collaborative tools... the label "social business" is starting
to have some weight. 

As a consultant that's what I'm most interested in - helping people
collaborate... facilitating communication that results in actions and
deliverables, vs the more casual conversations of early virtual
community. Kevin Leahy and I started investigating Google Wave here in
Austin - we set up a local meetup before many people had access to
Wave, and we've had interestingly diverse attendance over the several
months we've been doing it. People are looking for the next thing, and
I think it's sustained engagement and truly effective networking and
collaboration. That's what I see those reasonably sane young people
doing - they're more social that we ever thought about being, and
they're coordinating with SMS and Facebook, and to some extent,
Twitter. 

I'm fascinated by coworking arrangements, too, and the way they're
breeding working, not necessarily formal, partnerships. I thought it
was interesting that Austin's coworking facility, Conjunctured, opened
a second space - in Shanghai. (http://conjunctured.com/88spaces/)

I find myself spending a lot of time around people who are earnest,
creative, hardworking, and not greedy. They're not trying to make a
million bucks. They're not trying to be hot-shots. They're just
following their passion. And doing more and more socially - there's
probably hundreds of social events in Austin alone every month,
coordinated my social media. People aren't satisfied hanging out
online, they want face-to-face engagement... but it's so easy and
effective to use the web to coordinate.

This has to be going somewhere. Feels like evolution, it'll be
interesting to see where it leads.
  

    
> facilitating communication that results in actions and deliverables

I've spent more time than I care to think about fretting pointlessly
over why that sort of communication wasn't more common on The WELL 
than it has been.  It isn't because that's not what most of us are
here for.

It must help a lot if you can get people to self-select on the basis
of whether they're engaging with others to a common, tangible end, or
simply for the pleasure of engaging.
  

    
Bijoy Goswami and I spent some time talking, thinking, and presenting
about how to build effective communities. In his book _The Human
Fabric_, Bijoy describes a system of personality types - maven,
relater, and evangelist. (This isn't a unique system; Malcolm Gladwell
talks about something similar in _The Tipping Point_). He says that
most people are on a scale between two of the personality types - i.e.
you might be a maven-relater or an evangelist-maven. This is based on
core values - mavens are driven by knowledge, relaters by
relationships, and evangelists by action. The latter tend to be more
results oriented. Bijoy felt that many online communities were
naturally dominated by relater-maven types, who will end to focus on
conversations and knoweldge but not on results. We were thinking that
you could build results-oriented or action-oriented communities if you
had some people on board who have strong evangelist energy.

If this is correct, then it could be that the WELL is dominated by
people who are more into talking, thinking, and knowing than doing.
  

    
"If this is correct, then it could be that the WELL is dominated by
people who are more into talking, thinking, and knowing than doing."

*Is that a good-old-fashioned YOYOW Meaning-of-the-WELL meta-debate
that I see hatching there?  Wow!  Such good times, eh?

*I'm sidling off into the Serbian mountains tomorrow.  I suppose it's
to go breather fresh air and to see the snow -- for a Texan, snow
remains an exotic substance, something like cocaine or fairy-dust...
but mostly I go up there to get offline.

*I can't doubt that today's social media is a very different matter
from bulletin-board systems of the 1980s, the web of the 90s. New
affordances, new effects, new habits in cyberland.  I also can't doubt
that, long before it gets its feet under it, "social media" will be
destabilized by something else.  Maybe some ubiquitous locative "cloud
media" that helps urban people gain "deep walkability."  

*In tomorrow's locative Cloud Media, you become traumatized by the
discovery that the people in your neighborhood, a place that once
seemed so calming and homey to you, are actually extremist lunatics
with whom you share no humane issues, and you retreat back to the
conservative safety of FaceBook.  

*Tomorrow I plan to divest myself of my various gadgets and tromp
around under trees in the snow.  It seems to help, periodically.  The
city noise fades and, more to the point now, the Internet noise fades. 
I wouldn't say that I feel more natural out in Nature, because that
notion is a Romantic crock, but I would say that it's become more
soothing and clarifying to get away from the Internet than it is to get
away from a city.  Putting down the laptop has become a bigger deal
than blowing town.

*Even then I can't get completely away from the Net; next week I'll
still have to creep online for an hour or so a day, so as to check for
distant emergencies and visit the WELL here.
  

    
*Roxxxy the sex robot, another uploader spinoff:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/my-girlfriends-hot-but-she-has-a-builtin-c
ooling-system-20100110-m0tk.html

(...)

Inspiration for the sex robot sprang from the September 11, 2001
attacks. ''I had a friend who passed away in 9/11,'' Hines said. ''I
promised myself I would create a program to store his personality, and
that became the foundation for Roxxxy True Companion.''

(((Porn, 9/11 terror and uploading: a contemporary trio that oughta
guarantee at least a little press coverage.))) 

Hines sees the robot as a recreational innovation and an outlet for
the shy, people with sexual dysfunction and those who want to
experiment without risk.

Roxxxy costs between $US7000 ($7634) and $US9000 depending on
features.

(((So, first you're mourning your dear friend who perished in 9/11,
and seeking to keep his electronic mind preserved forever, and ten
years later you're mass-producing plastic genitalia.  The marvels of
modern tech development, ladies and gentlemen.)))
  

    
Sooner or later pervasive technologies will scale mountains, be
persistently everywhere, but hopefully there'll always be an opt-out
provision. 

Jamais Cascio was writing about this several years ago:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002651.html

"Soon -- probably within the next decade, certainly within the next
two -- we'll be living in a world where what we see, what we hear, what
we experience will be recorded wherever we go. There will be few
statements or scenes that will go unnoticed, or unremembered. Our day
to day lives will be archived and saved. What’s more, these
archives will be available over the net for recollection, analysis,
even sharing.

"And we will be doing it to ourselves.

"This won't simply be a world of a single, governmental Big Brother
watching over your shoulder, nor will it be a world of a handful of
corporate siblings training their ever-vigilant security cameras and
tags on you. Such monitoring may well exist, probably will, in fact,
but it will be overwhelmed by the millions of cameras and recorders in
the hands of millions of Little Brothers and Little Sisters. We will
carry with us the tools of our own transparency, and many, perhaps
most, will do so willingly, even happily."
  

    
From offline reader, Grant Henninger:

Bruce, you mention that, to paraphrase, we're facing the end of
consumer culture.  While I agree with this assessment, I'm not 100%
convinced it will turn out to be true.  The baby-boomers have spent
their entire lives consuming, I find it hard to imagine them suddenly
stopping.  However, it might be that this downturn in the economy has
made them see how fragile their retirement savings is (if they have
any at all).  If enough 'boomers change their saving habits we could
see a marginal change in spending that would truly affect the consumer
economy.  Consumerism requires an economy of scale, and if a marginal
change in savings brings that scale down enough, we might reach a
tipping point where it's just not as economically viable to build
cheap chotchkies in China as it has been.  I have a feeling the
consumer economy won't scale down as gracefully as it as scaled up.

So with that backdrop, I wanted to ask: What comes after the consumer
economy?
  

    
(Any offline readers who would like to ask a question or post a
comment, please email us at <inkwell@well.com>)
  

    
jonl

"...Soon -- probably within the next decade, certainly within the next
two -- we'll be living in a world where what we see, what we hear,
what
we experience will be recorded wherever we go. There will be few
statements or scenes that will go unnoticed, or unremembered. Our day
to day lives will be archived and saved. What’s more, these
archives will be available over the net for recollection, analysis,
even sharing..."

Actually Peter F. Hamilton writes about this in his The Reality
Dysfunction.

I wonder whether we will be writing in 100 years from now or whether
we will be communicating through shared experiences.
  

    
> What comes after the consumer economy?

The consumer economy is, among other things, a mass-production economy,
many copies of each item, bundled together by the carton, pallet, and
truckload.

Ubiquitous computing has begun to facilitate the reintroduction of 
unique, one-off design to mass production, beginning with factory 
options on automobiles fifty years ago or more, and reaching right
down to whether you want pickle and onion on your hamburger.

The inception of generalized factories intended to produce small runs
of various types of objects, reconfiguring themselves quickly in between,
will shift control back in the direction of the craftsman, in this case 
desingers using CAD/CAM software, occasionally in conjunction with work 
by hand.  Final assembly might frequently be left to the customer, as
is currently the case with office furniture.

In that economy, instead of owning many things, the objective will be
to own the right things that fit perfectly into your situation.
  

    
This talk of moving beyond a consumerist society is reminiscent in
some ways of the old hippie movement where materialism was challenged,
where to be anti-materialistic was the goal.  Just as that sentiment
dissipated into a realization that it takes materials to survive on the
planet--even "alternative" materials--the idea of moving beyond
"consumerism" is similarly suspect.

If there is one thing that the information age has brought us, it is
far greater efficiencies in manufacturing, distribution, and
economies-of-scale for consumers, and, most of all, a global
marketplace.  I'll always need size 11 1/2 shoes for my feet whether
they are Clarks from England, Honduran-made Nikes, or Birkenstocks from
someplace else.  My Ikea furniture is designed in Sweden, but
manufactured in Vietnam. It may offer more customizing features in the
future, but it still arrives in Renton, Washington offloaded from a
steel shipping container on a Panamanian cargo ship in the Port of
Seattle bundled with utmost efficiency with an optimal number of other
quasi-customizable pieces of Ikea furniture.

What is partially being discussed here is not moving beyond
"consumerism", but a possible return to what used to be called
"voluntary simplicity."  This is more of a consciousness shift where
we, as individuals, more deliberately address the manner in which we
will consume, and the ancillary effects of this consumption. 

Likewise, some of this will be downscaling--the result of
affordability.  If I only have $100.00 instead of $300.00 to spend next
year for my size 11 1/2 shoes, will it simply be more prudent to
purchase one very sturdy pair instead of six volume discount specials.
  

    
I agree that what Bruce described aligns very well with the "voluntary
simplicity" concept, though we might find "simplicity" less voluntary
given another trend Bruce describes - the trend toward free. Also given
the impact of rather profound economic collapse. Sure, companies are
showing profits and banks are looking better, but the word on the
street is that these are cosmetic effects. Companies fix their bottom
line by dropping productive capacity (i.e. laying people off), but
diminished productive capacity will eventually take its toll, so that
layoffs only work as a temporary stopgap measure. I think it's very
possible that the economy will continue to wind down, and at some point
we'll run out of cheap oil, so transportation will be an issue -
prices for the goods you described that are transport-intensive will
escalate beyond reach, and we'll depend more on local. SO, yeah, we'll
be downscaling. Imagine how the U.S. would change if the job losses
proved permanent and kept increasing, and oil prices and food prices
started rising again. These sorts of things snowball... pretty soon,
simplicity is mandatory, not voluntary.

The future's never real, that's just a scenario - but it doesn't seem
improbable.
  

    
I was boggling at the idea of cars ceasing to matter. Cars are
embedded in American art and culture. 

But trains were just that deeply embedded, and look at our train
system. We still have trains running back and forth in our music, but I
ride a bicycle to work every morning along where train tracks used to
run.

So, suppose that we all have the same kind of realization about
consumer products that we had about candy when we grew up: it's all the
same five ingredients in different combinations and shapes, and that's
all it will ever be. Suppose we go along year after year with the same
old more or less satisfactory scratched bits of metal and plastic.

Well, the first thing that happens is that we all get laid off. If we
stop selling each other artfully shaped bits of plastic and metal, we
don't have an economy. 

That would be . . . tricky. I don't have to be a ruthless scrabbling
bastard because I can earn everything I need between 9 and 5. If I had
to be some kind of businessman to survive, I would presumably wind up
like all the other incompetent businessmen: scared, out of my depth,
angry, always on the edge of becoming vicious.

Slippage, to much the same point.
  

    
from offsite reader Grant Henninger:

Scott, I think you kinda miss the point of my question.  It's not
about some neo-hippie movement where people look to live a more simple
life.  It's about survival, and the fact that if the 'boomers don't
want to be eating dog food in Miami when they're 80, they need to
start saving more.

Over the past three decades, new capital has been created in our
economy through finance and lending.  For the most part, we haven't
added value to the economy through labor or converting raw goods into
useful products.  Of course, there is still manufacturing happening in
the US, but it doesn't drive our economy like it once did.  (The
exception to this has been the construction industry, but the value of
the homes built pales in comparison to the value those homes have been
leveraged for.)  We've created wealth by leveraging our existing
assets, primarily by refinancing our homes and borrowing against our
future earnings in the form of credit card debt.

I'm in a unique position to see this change in behavior.  My parents
are divorced and I've acquired a few in-laws in the past couple of
years, so I have three sets of 'boomers to observe going through this
process.  One set is well prepared for retirement; one set has some
savings but not enough; and the third set has no savings at all.  It's
interesting that it's that middle set that is changing their behavior,
working to move more of their discretionary income to savings.  The
first set of parents don't have a need to change their spending
habits, partly because they haven't consumed much over the years,
which has contributed to them being the most well off as they approach
retirement.  The final set of parents have never seemed to worry about
the future and their lack of savings, and that attitude seems to have
maintained.

I don't know what the generalized retirement accounts look like for
the baby-boomers.  I really have little idea of how many 'boomers
would join each of my parental units in these three categories.
However, I suspect that the majority of 'boomers are in that middle
group.  They have some savings, but not enough to get them through the
end of their lives.  It is this group that is likely to divert more of
them discretionary spending to savings.  So what happens if they do
that?

Like I said in my original post, we're talking about a marginal
change, one that's small, one that doesn't involve a wholesale change
of attitude or outlook.  But many of our globalized businesses run on
small margins.  They have to sell a lot of widgets to make a profit.
So a small, marginal change can have big impacts.  If companies can't
ship enough widgets, the entire economy of scale that has made
international trade so successful will diminish.

I'm not trying to say that we won't have international trade, or that
consumerism is dying, or that finance won't create new wealth.  I'm
simply saying that the type of consumerism that has seen our economy
through the past three decades won't be the bedrock of our future
economic growth.  Just as manufacturing use to be the driver of the US
economy, and now it's no longer, but there are still manufacturing
jobs here; consumerism will cease to be the driver of the US economy,
something else will take its place, but there will still be consumer
jobs.  My question is, what will take the place of consumerism as the
main driver of the US economy?
  

    
"what will take the place of consumerism as the main driver of the US
economy?"

Thanks for the clarification, Grant.  My point was less about anything
neo-hippie today, but the idea of "voluntary simplicity" that came out
of that movement.  You are talking more about widespread "involuntary
simplicity" which I addressed, somewhat.

As to your well-posed question, I would suggest, barring total
collapse of the global economic system for whatever reason, consumerism
will morph based on the economics of supply and demand. In this we
will likely see a change of degree, not a change of kind.  How we
consume may well change.  Global consumerism won't likely go away.

(As a self-employed young boomer, I certainly don't see a magic
retirement age on the horizon.  I expect to be working until I am
unable to do so.  I think, as more and more people are forced to
"dance" to make ends meet, that this will become more the rule than the
exception).
  

    
> I expect to be working until I am unable to do so.

I had the same fantasy. What you'll find is that, if you lose your job
or decide to be self-employed for a while, and you're 40 or older,
you'll have a very tough time finding a job. If you're 50 or 60, nobody
will hire you. And if you tough it out on the job until you're pushing
60, you might be laid off ahead of other, younger workers. Don't
assume that, just because you're willing to work until you drop, that
anybody will hire you or pay you.
  

    
Good points, Jon.  

By "dance" I meant for me, now 54, mostly self-employment work
(Selling on Ebay, freelancing, other writing, Real Estate--hoping it
stabilizes) or those temporary gigs like doing US Census work.  

I actually prefer the independence this affords, and, yes, Grant, the
R.E. crash is very much changing my attitudes toward "consumption" on a
number of fronts.  That's just me, but I highly doubt that I am alone
with this these days (as Jon suggests).  
  

    
I really think we might become a nation - or world - of freelancers
and modular small organizations that use online tools to coordinate
larger projects and actions. If you're read Coase, Benkler, Shirky (and
jonl!) you can see that coming.
  

    
Current events on Enceladus, a no-kidding Saturnian moon.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-006
  

    
Images like that make me long for manned space travel, and at the same
time realize it's probably unnecessary and impractical. 
  

    
I do so like the gifts Cassini is sending us! 

Let's see -- people on Enceladus.  If it was me, it would be one
amazing experience. If it was somebody else, I would hope they had an
excellent photographer's eye, and a lot of context of what ice and snow
looks like here, so they could seek what looks different and what is
the same.  Could that be done with a remote probe controlled from here?
Maybe so, it might be fine.
  

    
Apologies if this has been covered - I've had to skip through many
posts to get here in time - but this is my burning question for the
year:

I am concerned about the urgent, runaway feedback loop triggering
aspect of global warming.  Bill McKibbin and groups like 350.org argue
that gigantic immediate CO2 and Methane reductions are necessary to
avoid passing set-points of irreversible change.  Melt an ice cap or
thaw permafrost and you trigger cycle-altering changes that no amount
of human effort can then undo.

So how do you get all of humanity to turn on a dime? Now.

As you said WRT some other sort of change above, and I agree:
>We shouldn't blithely let
convulsions happen while we're pretending to do something else.

Thanks for your thoughts.