Google Reader
I subscribe to a lot blogs and I love to share some of the more awesome stuff. If you are interested in the contents of my mediasphere, here you go! Bookmark this page or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed while I figure out how to get it to show up in this space.
Convergence is Coming
When I just stated college, I got into an internship in what was in 1994 called “New Media” at Sony. I got to work with this really incredible woman, Nicole Miller, who taught me to be an information seeker. remember reading wired, and sitting in on meetings with these people with ideas for set top boxes, seeing the new hi-def TVs, having conversations about how hypercard stacks worked and Moore’s Law… It was an amazing time of my life. It’s a period of my life that never really ended. Although, it seems I became a grip and a blogger rather than a new media executive, which is what I wanted to be when I grew up.
One of the things we would always talk about was that everything was going to come together in one box. They talked about “set top” boxes that would replace cable and television. This was years before the Tivo. This was years before Direct TV. I remember we got an advance Playstation that was stolen by someone at the Sony Pictures lot. It was kind of a big deal. They would talk about these boxes like they were some kind of magic box that could do anything.
In some ways, my laptop fills that role. I use it to communicate, store music and videos, shop, browse the interwebs…. but somehow, it is less of an entertainment device. I still like to watch movies on a bigger screen and sometimes socially. The Xbox360 had long ago replaced my TV for me. It costs as much as a graphics card for a PC and you don’t need to upgrade it every 6 months. I just buy a massive amount of games, I’ll admit it.
But they just released this new free interface update for the xbox. It’s WOW. It’s called the New Xbox Experience (NXE). Not to get too fanboy about it, but holy crap. Basically, it syncs with your netflix account and lets you stream videos live. It creates avatars of you (similar to the miis in wii sports) that can interact in parties of eight online. You ca store games on the xbox 360 hard-drive. You can share pictures with other users. I still will be watching DVDs. And it still plays games. But the cool thing about the netflix streaming is that I can watch CURRENT episodes of TV. I’m not a serious TV watcher, but that is pretty sweet! Now they gotta build a web browser into the thing. Forget “I want my MTV,” they just release every video ever online. Social media is also just at it’s infancy of connectivity.
But I digress. We are entering an era where everything is coming together. My phone, my laptop, my watch, my TV my game console, my mp3 player, my car, my wallet… t is all rapidly becoming one. The smarter scifi writers predicted it: Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Phillip K. Dick. In their messages were warnings. It is for us to heed the call and not lose our humanity into the machine.
As we get closer, people will talk more and more about the Singularity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity This is all related. Especially in the sense that it will accelerate us forward. All information soon will be available to all people. At least, that is what I am hoping for. That’s the game I am playing for.
Social Currency
As you know, dear reader, I have been thinking a lot about total economic collapse these last few weeks. It’s dark work, being a harbinger of disaster; I am stuck being the guy who is looking at the outcomes and the signs with no answers. I feel like Chicken Little, a paranoid little naysayer screaming about the sky and it’s impending doom (DOOM!). I am finding quite a bit of agreement in the world for my particular world-view. Between the stories I am finding on google reader, watching the incredible Story of Stuff and Zeitgeist: Addendum, and reading Get Back in the Box
The problem I have been having with the idea of economic collapse is that I can’t really see a social collapse along with it. As fun as it is to imagine a Fallout/Mad Max/ Burning Man reality becoming the dominant form, with Spaceman running around with a glock, a battleaxe and a camelback, it really would be a nightmare scenario for everyone (but it would look cool, you must admit). I can get that kind of thing from video games (read Fallout 3
We are moving into this heavily networked era of Humanity. An era where we are connected instantly and powerfully. Think of things like twitter, tribe and facebook. Hell think about this blog and how quickly I am able to get out information to the world. Think about how many of our career lives are connected with those that we are interacting with in social circles. I don’t really know the last grip job I worked that wasn’t connected to someone I thought of as a friend, who I would invite over for dinner. My friend KT is a photographer, (maybe you’ve heard of her) and her business is all based on relationships. There’s a recession on, and she’s doing fine because she has strong relationships. My friends Roxy and Chris, they have an acupuncture/chiropractic business, same thing. The needs we have as people are not going to go away if suddenly the almighty dollar isn’t anything more than fancy kindling for our furniture fires. Our relationships aren’t going to go away, either.
So what I have been wondering, is WHAT are we going to use as a basis for trade? The Burning Man gift economy seems to work pretty interestingly. It is also a meritocracy, where those who give the most, somehow get a much more rich experience. (Did you know that those DPW people, the ones that build the city before you get there, they get a shower truck, and three hot meals per day?) But, it is also centered on abundance, like we all spend a metric shit ton at Target and Santee Alley before we ever get there so we can gift the hell out of that playa. And then there’s trade goods? What would we use as currency? Oatmeal packets, silver coins, Clif Bars, bullets, clothing, pints of gasoline or water? All of these things? I read an article about prisoners in the state prison system using packets of mackerel bought from the prison store as their currency when the system outlawed smoking. What I fear is that it will be force that takes what it wants, as in “I have the uniform and the gun, I will take what I want.” This is the trouble with placing our well being into the hands of a few, who are armed to the teeth. In honesty, it will probably be some combination of these things. When things go sideways, I just hope we have some serious leadership nationally and locally to keep some semblance of sanity.
Our power in times of trouble will be from two sources. It will come from connectedness and social currency. Being networked to our communities is paramount. This means pay your phone bill and keep your internet access going almost above all else. Being able to twitter that you are hiding in your apartment and roving bands of hungry and angry former bankers and insurance salesmen are ransacking your building looking for tasty bites, could be the difference between getting help and being left to those monsters. Being able to know where people you know are gathering, and building new things: Essential. Knowing what resources there are, and where to get access to them, essential. Of course, I am an internet dude. I am biased. But I think the networked reality offered us by the web is probably the most important innovation to human connectedness and communication, yet.
But then there is this thing, Social Currency. What is it? It is an intangible. You have it through interactions with others. It is what you bring to the table in relationships. You may be someone who has a vast music collection and you share it. You may be someone who tells great jokes. You may be a great listener or communicator. You may be that person who can build things, or you may just give great hugs. It is your connection with others, your generosity to others. It is something that is not easily measured, but something that is easy to get. It is sharing. Going back to Burning Man, it is that thing that works with a really great theme camp (like mine this year) where everyone keeps giving and the pool of social currency keeps growing. Everyone is giving and sharing and building it up. The cool thing about social currency is that it, like love itself, is a perpetual motion machine. The more you give, to the more people you give it to, who then give, extending this abundant model. At it’s very core it is participation. It can only work in a networked reality.
A networked reality is our current ability to communicate to many and have instant feedback. It is a natural state. You send out communication and broadcast to everyone. Like this writing, for instance. It hits everyone, and those who it resonates with or effects read it and process it. They then have some social currency in the form of conversations, ideas, memes, new ways of thinking. I also get some social currency for bringing it to the electronic page. It is a zero loss kind of game. Meanwhile thousands of these communications are traveling back and forth through our networks, building up social currency among the community. Social currency can also be lost by being a jerk, or squelching communication, or making really poor choices (Dick Cheney lost some social currency when he shot that guy in the face, even though his friend was okay, for instance). But for the most part, it is an intangible, expanding aspect of our collective self.
So I am in just the very beginnings of working this out. Already, this may be my longest blog essay. But there is much much more. I am just excited that there is a reality I can start seeing that isn’t some survivalist wet dream. With Social Currency and Networked Reality I can start to see my lifelong dream of abundance and innovation for all coming to pass. It fits in with my commitment to the new Golden Age. It is emerging faster and faster, just before I posted this, I found this.
It is for us to work out the details, so please contribute by commenting on the blog or on the facebook feed. Comments = Social Currency.
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
George Bernard Shaw
The End Of Privacy
So, a few months ago, I decided to move my blogging into a more public forum. Tribe.net was a safe haven for my ideas, but their inherent slowness and unreliability had me seek other things. But to get my blog out to the most friends, I had to use Facebook, which is tied to my real name. Now this is a problem if in your head, you are this underground freedom fighter. Because the evil forces of evilness are always going to want to link back to you and your loved ones. I read Spiderman, you gotta have a secret identity.
And then there is the possibility of really making a difference. That is going to come from transparency and acceptance of who you are. That kind of power is going to come from taking full responsibility, radical accountability for your actions and your words. There is standing for something. I’m not saying that this is the most important blog on the internets or something. I’m just saying that it’s me.
We are living at the end of the industrial age. The internet has given us a voice. It is millions of voices, talking right back to mainstream media. In the last age, communication was a top down, lord to serf kind of relationship. TV, News, Magazines, Books… they all came to us and we did nothing but listen. It had been that way for as long as these technologies have existed. Media has always been the world of elites. It has also been the most effective way for agents of change and intelligence to get their word to the masses, at various rare points in history. The Internet made it possible for all. Anyone with a internet cafe can now change the world. Now, they joystick and the keyboard have given us a way to have a conversation back. Blogs and videogames, they are our access to taking control of the stories.
But, we must tell the stories to make the networked system work. By decentralizing the communication sources, by making every man woman and child becomes an editor, newscaster, videographer, humorist, eroticist, priest, magician, political pundit, distributor… and we become the voice. Honestly, if you have even thought about it, you MUST start putting your stuff on the web. get a wordpress.com blog. Open a facebook account, and link it to your videos on youtube. Twitter your whereabouts. Post photos of yourself from your phone. Find me and network yourself to me!
We cannot stop them from watching. The Genie is out of the bottle on surveillance. They can watch and read everything. They can link whatever we write to almost any email or IP address. But by the same token, we can’t stop them from masturbating while watching us either. As we flood the system with chaff, we become more invisible. In an age of reality TV, the only thing more cameras is going to achieve is to make me think I am even more a rockstar than I already know I am.
Networks communicate from every node. The radical thing I am suggesting is to tell everything. Be wholly yourself without reservation. Of course, that is easy for me, I work in Hollywood, and don’t have to answer to corporate masters. But ultimately, your corporate masters or the various tentacles of the American Law Enforcement Community will be able to find anything about you anyway. Wait until the tagging facial recognition software comes out for the public. Be smart out there, but express yourself fully and don’t hold back.
The system is in a state of upheaval right now, and everything is changing. It’s painful for the system too. Change is coming, and we are on the fast first wave. Be free.
edit: this just in: naked pics of yourself can be trouble.
John McCain, Reformed Maverick
John McCain, Reformed MaverickFrom The Daily Show. Incredibly beautiful. I love the Brando comparisons. Holy hell! Pull no punches Comedy Central!
Back to Life
It took me a little longer to get back into the swing of life after getting back from the forest (and i certainly did not work as hard as some!). I have spent the last few days trying to get back into life in the big city, and it has definitely been challenging.
Fell out of the practice
So, keeping up with the media fast and blogging every day collided. I wasn’t able to really do both right, so I did both half assed. The exercise was a success, I did fast from the media for 5 days and came out of it hearing about an earth shattering earthquake in china. Still though, my not knowing the news did not severely affect my life. Ram in the brain has been freed up for other things, like video codecs.
Ultra. It’s awesome, cheap and cute. It stores 60 minutes of video, works on two aa batteries and plugs directly into my computer. Now, if I can just get the flip video avi files to work in imovie 08. I know it is possible.
I Love Los Angeles
“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Harris, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” – The Freeway Sign in L.A. Story
spaceman23
