You will be watched...

Following up on last weekend's review of the anti-transparency novel, The Circle, let's continue to the real world -- starting with cogent thoughts about reciprocal vision by artificial intelligence scholar Ben Goertzel in H+:  "We're Watching Sousveillance gradually emerge and expose abuses of power." 

== Lessons from the Central Kingdom ==

Throngs of pro-democracy protesters continue to gather in Hong Kong's central business district, despite government actions to limit access to both cell phone and Wifi,  They are doing this using self-organizing “mesh networks”… the kind of technology I’ve been berating everyone from Google to the US Government to Qualcomm to get behind, for twenty years.  

To be clear, systems like FireChat rely upon bluetooth, which has short range. There’s also a critical mass issue and it is not proof against being tracked by authorities or even, in theory, jammed.  Still, according to the FireChat makers: "Once you build a mesh network ... now you have a network that is resilient, self-healing, cannot be controlled by any central organization, cannot be shut down and is always working.”

That's optimistically utopian.  In fact, it is an important step, but any one such approach is vulnerable, which is why Qualcomm’s cellular peer-to-peer capability, built into their next LTE systems, will also be vital — assuming we can coerce the cell-cos like Verizon and ATT to turn it on.

These alternatives are not only vital to freedom in transition states, but also to resilience in developed and democratic nations. When we have mesh and peer-to-peer backups, the resulting inherent robustness will help civilization stay connected, even if (when) some disaster strikes.  It will also help to deter terror-sabotage, since systems capable of resilience, self-repair and fail-operational continuity are just no darn fun to attack.

== Watching the watchers of the watchers ==

Let's get back to this year's huge topic: the spreading use of cameras, by citizens, during their interactions with police -- and police response with cameras of their own.  One of you out there, Matthew Reed Bailey, wrote in, suggesting that the solution to citizen-police tension is not only to record authority, but to “layer” these recordings so that there will never be a way for cops to avoid it:

“One person directly films/videos the Authorities. Another person (or two or three) films/videos the interaction (from varying distances if possible) of the interaction between the first camera and the Authorities. And, then have several "Backups”…”

Indeed, reiterating a point that must be repeated, what he describes is the absolutely necessary next step, after last year's fantastic victory -- the 2013 declaration -- by both the courts and the administration -- that citizens have an absolute right to record their interactions with police... the most important civil liberties decision in 30 years. Yes, it was vital! And pardon a plug, but there was a chapter predicting every phase of this, in The Transparent Society (1997).

Of course, the next phase was obvious -- a plague of cell phones and cameras "accidentally" broken by police, etc.

What I also predicted in The Transparent Society was that this phase would be short lived, as a layering of recordings would take effect, with cameras at increasing distance from the action watching the watchers of the watchers. What I did NOT expect was how swiftly this transition would happen. Before 2013 was over, we got to see a man in an orange jail-jumpsuit being sentenced to a couple of years in prison, for breaking the camera-phone of the man he was arresting. Because someone further away caught him in the act.

This is why we must resist attempts to give police the power to shut down all phones in an area. At minimum, we must demand that our cameras still work, in such a shut-down!

You "get" the idea. This is not so much anti-police as anti-bully. We have a right to insist, via accountability, that our police departments hire calm, professional adults.

An sf'nal aside: Take a look at What Battlestar Galactics can teach us about the Militarization of Police: A fascinating… if flawed… rumination about what several thoughtful science fiction films illustrate about the balance of powers among citizens and their protectors, the military and police.

== and each other! ==

'In February, TMZ posted a video of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice dragging his apparently unconscious then-fiancée Janay Palmer (now his wife Janay Rice) from an elevator at the Revel casino in Atlantic City.”  This article  raises a fascinating point about the depth of transparency. That first video allowed Palmer to claim “partial blame” implying she had started a fight with Rice. That's no excuse for a huge athlete knocking her unconscious, but mitigation in some folks’ eyes.

Then came the second video… “from inside the casino elevator. It shows Rice punching Palmer — and makes it clear that what happened wasn't a "fight," but an attack. The outrage over the new video led the Ravens to terminate Rice's contract, likely ending his NFL career.”

In this excellent perspective, Dara Lind makes several key points about the depth and layering effects of our increasingly transparent world: “But the new Rice video is an illustration of what happens when the person who has the video decides not to release it. For whatever reason, someone who had access to the surveillance footage from outside the casino elevator — which caught Rice dragging Palmer's apparently unconscious body — decided in February that it was something the public needed to see. But whoever had access to the footage from inside the elevator, which showed Rice punching Palmer out, made the opposite choice. … If no one had decided to release either video, it's extremely unlikely the case would have generated the kind of outrage it did — much less gotten NFL commissioner Goodell to change league policy. But if both videos had been released at once, it would have been much harder for the Ravens and their fans to assume for months that Janay Rice was to blame.”

Indeed, there are layering effects.  Get used to it.

==Transparency Apps==

Boycott and BuyPartisan are downloadable apps that let you scan product barcodes and find out if the company… or its officers… have actively supported some cause that you like… or loathe. One would hope that people use these things in moderation… except when it comes to Koch companies. At which point stringent ferocity is called for, lest the Confederacy win this round of the ongoing American Civil War.

Worried about emergency response times? The Peacekeeper App allows you to call upon neighbors in case of an emergency, sending an alert for crises Medical, Fire, Intruder, or Abduction. You can join an Emergency Response Group (ERG) or set up your own alliance of neighbors. The web site has a slightly redolent political aroma... but if it does what it claims, who cares?

Meanwhile the FTC declares that many mobile shopping apps lack sufficient transparency on privacy policies for consumers' rights.

==Overseeing the Government==

Forty-seven U.S. federal Inspectors General signed a letter this month highlighting problems with access to federal records — problems they say slow their investigations and threaten their independence. In fact, the current use of IGs is scandalous — with many of them forced into conflict-of-interest, owing their appointments to the very officials they are charged to scrutinize. 

I have long proposed sets of reforms that might improve the effectiveness of civil servants while simultaneously reassuring citizens that bureaucrats ARE “servants,” accountable and obeying the law. Foremost among these proposals has been IGUS — creating the office of Inspector General of the United States.   

The notion of a separate “inspectorate” dates back to Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Chinese Republic, in 1911. If all departmental and agency IGs reported to a truly independent IGUS, the shift could be so simple that the bill might fit on one page. Yet citizen confidence and trust could be multiplied several-fold.

Finally...  a very interesting analysis of censorship in China. Researchers find that "Criticisms of the state, its leaders, and their policies are routinely published, whereas posts with collective action potential are much more likely to be censored," because these create "actionable information" for the authorities.

Seventeen fake cellphone towers were discovered across the U.S. last week. Owned by mysterious entities, they look like Verizon or ATandT towers etc, but sift and steal messages, texts… anything they want. Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated. One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found eight different interceptors on that trip.

Rumor check: a partial “debunking” or clarification of the fake cell tower story….

...as the core drama of our era continues.

Ways to make civilization robust

The resilience of our entire civilization is increasingly reliant on a fragile network of cell phone towers, which are the first things to fail in any crisis, e.g. a hurricane or other natural disaster… or else deliberate (e.g. EMP or hacker) sabotage.

I have been nagging about this for almost two decades. My recommendation — offered to national and corporate leaders since 1995? That our pocket phones should have a backup communication mode that is peer-to-peer, that could pass messages from phone to phone through any afflicted area until they reach a zone with cell service, at which point the messages would spill into the continental network.

This would be frightfully easy to accomplish, especially for simple text messages. In fact, the technology has been incorporated in Qualcomm’s latest chip sets. Though the major carriers — AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc — have all refused to activate it. This despite the fact that they would be perfectly free to bill for any P2P-passed messages -- that's easy. For years I asked national officials to require this backup, as a matter of overall robustness and public safety. Access to working phones made the biggest difference between two disasters... 9/11 - "the Day of the Citizen," when average folks were able to self-organize and step up - vs the calamitous collapse of civilization during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Now comes terrific news. “Qualcomm and other wireless companies have been working on a new cellular standard—a set of technical procedures that ensures devices can “talk” to one another—that will keep the lines open if the network fails. The Proximity Services, or so-called LTE Direct, standard will be approved by the end of the year.”

I am tempted to proclaim that “nagging eventually pays off!” But of course, there are lots of smart people out there who could see the same things that I did. When I gave a talk at Qualcomm about similar ideas, some years ago, I described how simple it would be to do this with packets, like text messages. The next time I spoke to some of their managers, I was stunned to learn they had not only made great strides in Peer to Peer, but were proposing a version that could even do P2P for real-time voice communication! Now that’s some ingenuity. That’s some company.

== Hey, you, get offa that cloud ==

Oh, but trends are far worse on the business side of the Internet. Any company (or person) who tries to be “efficient” by entrusting crown jewel data to the Cloud has got to be crazy. Take this from Mark Anderson, one of the smartest tech-industry pundits:

“There are two chilling trends in Internet security that were underlined this week with the announcement by Hold Security of a Russian crime ring taking around 1.2 billion user names and password combinations from perhaps 420,000 different hacked websites. The first is a ramping of theft success on all scores, from personal IDs to nations stealing crown jewel intellectual property, which simply can no longer be tolerated if innovation and commerce are to continue. 

“The second is a massive movement to cloud computing, driven by financial requirements rather than security requirements, at a time when our internal sources indicate that clouds have already been hacked.”

This is related to a another point I’ve made since 1995… and in The Transparent Society… that everything leaks, sooner or later. And we are better off making ourselves and our systems robust, able to shrug off and adapt to this inevitability, than whining and thrashing about, expecting the next “security” measure to work, at last.

It is disparities in transparency that threaten the health of freedom, markets, science and civilization.

Remember this.  Most villains (just like vampires) are fatally allergic to light.  Hence, the trick will be to expose them to it!  Lots of it. The solution is not to cower in the few remaining shadows hoping for concealment.  They are better at that, than you and I are.

== Transparency-related news ==

Here’s an algorithm that could use Facebook Likes alone to reliably determine six million users’ private traits like their sexual orientation, IQ, religious beliefs, life satisfaction, and personality traits—even when the Likes seemingly had nothing to do with the traits in question. Do not get outraged. This is absolutely inevitable! What you can do is shift your passion over to sousveillance.

Another insightful article explores the many potential advantages, when civilians become empowered to fly their own drones. The ability to independently verify events, ensure accountability for public officials and police, provide situational awareness, deliver or fetch important items…. Yes there will be privacy concerns. But how better to catch that neighborhood voyeur than with a drone of your own, so that you can track the peeping tom and tell his mom!

And in the category of how do you plan to stop this? “By 2010, license-plate scanners had become standard equipment for most urban repo firms, and the number of plates stored in national databases was growing by tens of millions a month. ... The richer the data gets, the easier it is to make predictions about a driver’s home address, workplace, gym, or favorite restaurant. Digital Recognition Network (DRN) has one of the largest plate-capture databases in the country, with a fleet of more than 2,000 affiliated trucks and upwards of 1.8 billion scans.”

Answer: Any attempt to repress this - or face recognition - will only ensure that elites still have this power — governments, corporations, criminals — but such laws will make sure you and I have no access.   They will become gods and we will be permanent peasants. If this is inevitable, then let us all see. And then let’s learn - because of that light - to leave each other alone.

Oh, but then… artists are putting into practice my point about rendering surveillance visible to the rest of us. Some very interesting… and pointedly clever… innovations.

And finally, here’s something that’s simultaneously funny and deeply, deeply offensive. But also a clever way for a company to make its point... and that means it is likely they were all actors, after all, invalidating the whole thing. All told, a clever META view of where we are heading in the VR/AR holodeck world. Faked nuclear war….

"Primer" Technologies For Enhancing 21st Century Citizenship

What new technologies could make the most difference?

Across the 20th Century, a growing array of problems were solved through the application of professional skill. We came to rely increasingly upon professions ranging from medical doctors to law enforcement, from teachers to farmers for countless tasks that an average family used to do largely for itself. No other trend so perfectly represents the last century as this one, spanning all boundaries of politics, ideology or geography.

And yet - just as clearly - this trend cannot continue much longer. If only for demographic reasons, the as the rate of professionalization and specialization must start to fall off, exactly as we are about to face a bewildering array of new -- and rapid-onrushing -- problems.

How will we cope?

Elsewhere I speak of the 21st Century as a looming "Age of Amateurs," wherein a highly educated citizenry will be able to adeptly bring to bear countless capabilities and individual pools of knowledge, some of which may not be up to professional standards, but that can find synergy together, perhaps augmenting society's skill set, at a time of need. We saw this very thing happen at the century's dawn, on 9/11. Most important, helpful and successful actions that occurred on an awful day were taken by self-mobilized citizens and amateurs. At a moment when professionalism failed at many levels. 

It is important to note what a strong role technology played in fostering citizen action on 9/11. People equipped with video cameras documented the day and provided our best post-mortem footage. People with cell phones organized the evacuation of the twin towers. Similar phone-stirred gumption stirred and empowered the heroes who fought back and made the Legend of Flight UA 93.  A phenomenon that noted author Rebecca Solnit later documented in A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.

In sharp contrast, the events of Hurricane Katrina (and the 2011 earthquake-tsunami in Japan) showed the dark side of this transition -- a professional protector caste (crossing party and jurisdiction lines: including republicans and democrats, state, local and federal officials) whose sole ambition appeared to be to limit citizen-organized activity. Moreover, the very same technology that empowered New Yorkers and Bostonians betrayed citizens in New Orleans. Thousands who had fully-charged and operational radios in their pockets were unable to use them for communication -- either with each other or the outside world -- thanks to collapse of the cellular phone networks.

This was a travesty. But the aftermath was worse! Because, amid all the finger-pointing and blame-casting that followed Katrina, almost no attention has been paid to improving the reliability and utility of our cell networks, to assist citizen action during times of emergency. To the best of my knowledge. no high level demand has gone out - from FEMA or any other agency - for industry to address problems revealed in the devastation of America's Gulf Coast. A correction that should be both simple/cheap and useful to implement.

What do we need? We must have new ways for citizens to self-organize, both in normal life and (especially) during crises, when normal channels may collapse, or else get taken over by the authorities for their own use. All this might require is a slight change -- or set of additions -- in the programming of the sophisticated little radio communications devices that we all carry in our pockets, nowadays.

How about a simple back-up mode for text messaging? One that could use packet-switching to bypass the cell towers when they are down, and pass messages from phone to phone -- or peer-to-peer -- at least among phones that are of the same type? (GSM, TDMA, CDMA etc.) All of the needed packet-switching algorithms already exist. Moreover, this would allow a drowning city (or other catastrophe zone) to fill with tens of thousands of little spots of light, supplying information to helpers and reassurance to loved ones, anywhere in the world.

See: Designed to let us down in emergencies: Our deliberately frail cell phone system.

Are the cell companies afraid their towers will be bypassed when there's no emergency? What foolishness. This mode could be suppressed when a good tower is in range and become useful automatically when one is not... a notion that also happens to help solve the infamous "last mile connectivity problem." Anyway, there are dozens of ways that p2p calls could be billed. Can we at least talk about it?

(Late note: as of 2012, it seems that at long last some efforts are being made in this area, by Qualcomm and some other companies.  Stay tuned -- so to speak.)

The same dismal intransigence foils progress on the internet, where millions of adults use "asynchronous" communications methods, like web sites, blogs and email, but shun "synchronous" zones like chat and avatar worlds, where the interface (filled with sexy cartoon figures) seem designed to ruin any chance of useful discourse. For example, by limiting self-expression to about a sentence at a time and ignoring several dozen ways that human beings actually organize and allocate scarce attention in real life. To answer your next question: Facebook is quasi synchronous for those folks who haunt it almost incessantly. It thus acquires most of the worst traits of both worlds.

When someone actually pays attention to this "real digital divide" - between the lobotomized/childish synchronous chat/avatar/facebook world and the slow-but-cogent asynchronous web/blog/download world -- we may progress toward useful online communities like rapid "smart mobs." 

For example, crowd-sourcing and citizen engagement are increasingly playing a role in science -- both in terms of funding and direct participation in research.

Only first, we are going to have to learn to look at how human beings allocate attention in real life! (For more on this: see EpoceneChat)

Another tool involves Disputation Arenas, using conflict and competition to help resolve issues and achieve mediation, consensus or synthesis.

Oh, there are dozens of other technologies that will add together, like pieces in a puzzle, synergizing to help empower the magnificent citizen of tomorrow. Facial recognition systems and automatic lookups will turn every pedestrian on any street into someone who you vaguely know... a prospect that cynical pundits will decry, but that was EXACTLY how our ancestors lived, nearly all of them, throughout human history. The thing to be afraid of is asymmetries of power, not universal knowledge. The thing to protect is not your secrecy, but your ability to deter others from doing you harm.

Likewise, I assure you that we are on the verge of getting both lie detectors and reliable personality profiling. And yes, if these new machines frighten you, they should! Because they may wind up being clutched and monopolized by elites, and then used against us. I am glad you're frightened. If that happens, we will surely see an era that makes Big Brother look tame.

And yet, the solution to this danger is not to "ban" such technologies! That is exactly what elites want us to do (so they can monopolize the methods in secret out of our skeptical eye). No, that reflex sees only half the story. Come on, open your mind a little farther.

What if those very same -- inevitable -- technologies wind up being used by all sovereign citizens of an open democracy, say, fiercely applied to politicians and others who now smile and croon and insist that they deserve our trust? In other words, what if we could separate the men and women who have told little lies and admit it (and we forgive them) from those who tell the really dangerous and destructive whoppers? Those who are corrupt and/or blackmailed and/or lying through their teeth?

In that case, won't we have a better chance of making sure that Big Brother doesn't happen... ever?

Oh, it is a brave new world... We will have to be agile. Some things will be lost and others diminished.  We will have to re-define "privacy" much closer to home, or even just within it.

On the other hand, if we don't panic, we may see the beginnings of the era of the sovereign and empowered citizen. An Age of Amateurs in which no talent is suppressed or wasted, and no problem escapes the attention of a myriad talented eyes.

=====     =====     =====

See more on Citizen Involvement in Emergency Preparedness

 as well as Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness for Society's Benefit

Designed To Let Us Down... our deliberately frail cell phone system

Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi, an expert on communications theory at USC, spoke up recently in support of one of the concepts I have been pushing. Based upon the obscene situation that we saw during the Hurricane Katrina Crisis, when tens of thousands of victims found themselves cut off from the world, even though they had, in their pockets, sophisticated radio communications devices -- cell phones that betrayed folks the very moment they were needed most. Viterbi commented (and apologies for the embedded self-quotation):

Brin goes on to say that the teachable moment provided by Katrina was lost, and that the cellular industry could make a relatively simple, inexpensive change that would allow cell phones to still function to network survivors in a crisis :

".... almost no attention has been paid to improving the reliability and utility of our cell networks, to assist citizen action during times of emergency. To the best of my knowledge. no high level demand has gone out - from FEMA or any other agency -- for industry to address cell-system problems revealed in the devastation of America 's Gulf Coast. A correction that should be both simple/cheap and useful to implement.

"What do we need? We need ways for citizens to self-organize, both in normal life and (especially) during crises, when normal channels may collapse, or else get taken over by the authorities for their own use. All this might require is a slight change -- or set of additions -- in the programming of the sophisticated little radio communications devices that we all carry in our pockets, nowadays.

"How about a simple back-up mode for text messaging? One that could use packet-switching to bypass the cell towers when they are down, and pass messages from phone to phone -- or peer-to-peer -- at least among phones that are of the same type? (GSM, TDMA, CDMA etc.) All of the needed packet-switching algorithms already exist. Moreover, this would allow a drowning city (or other catastrophe zone) to fill with tens of thousands of little spots of light, supplying information to helpers and reassurance to loved ones, anywhere in the world."

These pushes of mine have not gone completely ignored or unnoticed. As Viterbi's riffs on the topic show, there have been some fascinating and insightful exchanges, discussing how the nation and public might benefit by adding peer-to-peer supplemental capabilities to the present cell system.

Some object that this development could cost millions. But that is not any real obstacle in an industry making hundreds of billions in the US alone. If either the government or the cell companies saw a clear benefit model, it would be trivial to justify the relatively small expense. Certainly far smaller than incorporating web browsers and MP3 players!

The problem is that top-down hierachy mentalities do not easily grasp the potential of flattened networks.... and this despite the clear example of the Internet itself, as a super-empowering, hierarchy-flattening phenomenon.

(Indeed, I believe that there are underlying PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS that the twin examples of the Internet - and citizen competence on 9/11 - may have prompted an immune reaction against citizen empowerment, on the part of some members of the Paid Protector Castes. But that's another story.)

One more-cogent objection to the notion of augmenting cell phones with Peer-to-Peer capability: it takes a lot more energy to transmit than to receive. Most cell phones are actually very weak transmitters that function poorly without energetic base towers nearby.

The answer to this objection is simple. In order to use P2P effectively in a crisis, when the towers are down, personal cell phones do not have to carry voice. In an emergency, text messages can make a tremendous difference, e.g. in calling for help, or informing loved-ones that you are okay, or in passing crucial information to authorities. Especially since text messages can be transmitted with multiple repetition-redundancy, simple calculations show that pocket transmitters (cell phones) could pass these along at trivial power expenditure.

Obviously, this same answer deals with objections that P2P (peer to peer) does not carry voice well. So?The algorithms for passing along text messages are very little different from classic packet switching for email, on the Internet. Implementation ought to be trivial.

How to explain why this simple augmentation has not been implemented, even though it is clearly in the national and public interest? One theory is that the cell companies may feel threatened by P2P capabilities. Or that they see no way to make money off them. But this needn't be a problem. For one thing, it should be easy for each hand set to track passed-on messages and inform the network, for billing purposes. Or else the P2P system can be turned off, whenever there is a fully functional cell tower nearby! Thus, automatically reverting to P2P only under circumstances when the capability is actually needed!

Moreover, there is an added allure to this approach, one that could help the cell-cos make real money. By developing P2P capability, companies may open the door to a new method for solving their "last mile problem" - or how to extend coverage into dark zones, just beyond reach of their current network of towers. Think. Why not let customers who happen to be at the edge of the coverage area get a small pay-back fee for every text message that they pass through, from people who are just outside the covered zone? The same way people with solar or wind generators can make their meters run backward, feeding power into the grid.

If such customers had a more sophisticated home-cradle unit, they might even be able to pass through voice calls from a nearby dark zone. Reducing their own bill, helping the company, and making our entire communications system more robust.

Indeed, can anyone doubt that someday, somebody will realize there is a business plan in this? An entirely peer-to-peer network, in which, customers home-cradle units make up the bulk of an alternative cell system? But we'll save that futuristic sci fi scenario for another time. What I am talking about, here, is something that could be implemented in just one year, if anyone (like FEMA) were actually serious about fostering a more resilient and robust society. A pretty big "if" - apparently.

The fact that cell phones served the national defense so well on 9/11, yet failed in Katrina, should have been enough to tell us that serious work is needed, work that has been entirely lacking while we let ourselves be distracted on other adventures. I mean, isn't it a no-brainer for Homeland Security and FEMA to support this kind of capability, in the national interest?

After thinking about it, how do YOU feel about the sophisticated little tranceiver radio in your pocket, now that you know that it was designed almost perfectly to let you down, someday, at the very moment that you might need it most?

==See more of my articles on Emergency Preparedness

How societies work... and improve...

I have just cross-linked my “Adopt An Ostrich” article on Daily Kos. (It took a little while to figure out the convoluted format.) I’ll only do this for the most “important” essays and I doubt I will do much comment-response there. So any Kos-ers who keep an eye open over there, please let me know if I ever need to pay closer attention.

And yes, go thou forth, all of you, and Adopt an Ostrich! Seriously. People like you are only a couple of degrees of separation from the civil servants and skilled officers who we must reach. The inherently conservative -- but modernist and deeply loyal and sincere -- men and women who are members of the Protector Caste, who need to be awakened to a basic truth. That the Republic and civilization is in greater danger now than it has been for all our lives, and from an enemy as bad as communism ever was.

If we can waken enough of these sincere Goldwater conservatives, a tipping point may be reached and our civilization may yet be saved. Be tenacious, relentless.

==How Societies Work==

Some of you may be interested in a paper by Rand Corp research David Ronfeldt, part of his continuing efforts to develop a framework about social evolution -- past, present, and future: In Search of How Societies Work: Tribes -- The First and Forever Form.

I’ll give the entire abstract here, because I think it is a fascinating topic and one worth considerably more sophisticated thinking than most of us apply to it.

ABSTRACT: "The latest in a string of efforts to develop a theoretical framework about social evolution, based on how people develop their societies by using four forms of organization-tribes, hierarchical institutions, markets, and networks-this installment focuses on the tribal form. The tribal form was the first to emerge and mature, beginning thousands of years ago. Its main dynamic is kinship, which gives people a distinct sense of identity and belonging-the basic elements of culture, as manifested still today in matters ranging from nationalism to fan clubs.

"This report provides a lead-off chapter that sketches the entire framework, plus a "rethinking" chapter that shows why David Ronfeldt thinks that social evolution revolves around four forms of organization. A chapter then traces the evolution of tribes and clans, and the final chapter describes modern manifestations of the tribal form. An appendix reprints three op-ed pieces that sprang from Ronfeldt's efforts to understand the tribal form and its continuing relevance. Ronfeldt maintains that societies advance by learning to use and combine all four forms, in a preferred progression. What ultimately matters is how the forms are added and how well they function together. They are not substitutes for each other; they are complements. Historically, a society's advance-its progress-depends on its ability to use all four forms and combine them into a coherent, well-balanced, well-functioning whole. Essentially monoform tribal/clan societies and biform chiefdoms and clan-states, some dressed in the trappings of nation-states and capitalist economies, remain a ruling reality in vast areas of the world. It therefore behooves analysts and strategists who mostly think about states and markets to gain a better grip on roles the tribal form plays in both national development and national security.”

Fascinating stuff, by one of the brightest and most agile social thinkers around.

And while we are being intellectual, let me reiterate the recommendation that folks have a look at Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual by George Dvorsky. Another fellow who pours far too much energy into blogging... to our benefit. Dvorsky strives to come up “with a list of the most fundamental and crucial terms that are coming to define and will soon re-define the human condition.” Following all the links could keep you plenty busy. Too busy to go out to bars hunting for a mate. So it is a eugenics plot, after all.

==Mass-produced laptops==

See screen shots of the proposed GUI for MIT $100 computer... the project, the initiative to put $100 laptops in the hands of children around the world. The interface uses a highly abstracted spatial navigation metaphor, an extension of the familiar desktop metaphor, for easy, intuitive navigation that makes the most of the laptop’s networking capabilities. Children can move through four levels of view—Home, Friends, Neighborhood, and Activity—and connect with others in the network “mesh” formed by users.

Of course this is an area of great interest. Let me offer some thoughts.

1) by the time these laptops are mass produced, they will also have cheap cameras, augmenting the effect that cell phones are already having in the Developing World (see my earlier posting about this) empowering local activists with powerful tools of reciprocal accountability. (Obviously I am expecting that parents will also use these machines.) The proliferation of cameras, P2P computer nets etc will worry hierarchical despotisms... And yet the most sincere of those despotisms will WANT some of the anti-corruption effects of reciprocal accountability to apply upon LOW level public officials, whose waste and parasitism depletes the entire nation, the way an infestation of tapeworms can impoverish your body. You can expect nations like China to embrace grass-roots anti-corruption efforts, enhanced by these tools, while suppressing them at national levels.

2) As mentioned, there is discussion of empowering these laptops with peer-to-peer (P2P) capabilities so that they can network even without the existence of local hubs. If this happens, it will be one more example of how the 3rd world may leapfrog past the 1st world, with capabilities that we, here in the West, badly need. I feel that today’s cell phone companies, for example, have utterly betrayed the national and public interest by not engendering a P2P backup capability for at least text messaging -- capabilities that would have proved useful during crises like Katrina. (See more about this under “Comments” later, just below.)

If another disaster happens, in which many thousands or millions are cut off, with charged/sophisticated radios in their pockets that are completely useless when needed most, there will be hell to pay. Or there ought to be. Next time, the cell-cos themselves may get some of the blame.

3) Back to the $100 laptop. It is a great program and deserves massive support. And yet...

And yet... you keep hearing about how smart the interface design people at MIT are... and I don’t get it. The layered GUI of the proposed $100 laptop is sweet and intuitive... and still misses several key insights having to do with allocation of scarce human attention. It is an incremental improvement... and may do a lot of good. But it patronizes the ultimate users. And strenuously avoids the bigger steps that would actually help make things a lot better.

==Communication for the 21st Century==

And yes, this segues into my Holocene invention. The recent awarding of my incredibly broad (126 claims) patent has somewhat raised the level at which people are taking these ideas seriously. Seriously... but often with a sense of heated rage... almost like the way a tsunami of geek-letters poured in, after my “Why Johnny Can’t Code” article, a few months back.

So far, I have been amazed by a rich variety of responses that seek to AVOID discussing the issues raised by my patent... how to help online users divide and allocate scarce attention across screen based environments, using methods and tools similar to those we already have used in the real world, ever since the caves.

Instead, a majority seem driven to complain at peripheral issues like:

“Why would anyone want to do that?”
“How can you patent something so obvious? Of course there’s prior art!”
”Patents are evil!”

Look... either these things are being done, usefully, right now, or they are not. The question is a simple one. And yet, a vast majority seems determined to avert their gaze in ANY direction but at the very basic issue, almost as if it hurts to look at a conceptual blind spot...

...but I won’t waste space here at the top level, answering this nonsense, especially since a few of the very brightest out there are starting to lift their heads from the depressing-dulling imagination-suppressing effects of the 21st-Century-So-Far.

I may add a little riff, below, in comments, elaborating. Overall, though. I am learning the value of patience. Waiting for the times to catch up, I suppose.

Worldchanging News: Tools for Enhancing 21st Century Citizenship

Now here is a riff on what new technologies could make the most difference?

"What needs to be done in the near future? What worldchanging tool, model or idea will you be watching (or hoping to see emerge)? What key piece of knowledge do we need? What action must we take? What do we do now?"

Tools For Enhancing 21st Century Citizenship

by David Brin (12/06)

Across the 20th Century, a growing array of problems were solved through the application of professional skill. We came to rely increasingly upon professions ranging from medical doctors to law enforcement to teachers to farmers for countless tasks that an average family used to do largely for itself. No other trend so perfectly represents the last century as this one, spanning all boundaries of politics, ideology or geography.

And yet - just as clearly - this trend cannot continue much longer. If only for demographic reasons, the as the rate of professionalization and specialization must start to fall off, exactly as we are about to face a bewildering array of new -- and rapid-onrushing -- problems.

How will we cope?

Elsewhere I speak of the 21st Century as a looming "Age of Amateurs," wherein a highly educated citizenry will be able to adeptly bring to bear countless capabilities and individual pools of knowledge, some of which may not be up to professional standards, but that can find synergy together, perhaps augmenting society's skill set, at a time of need. We saw this very thing happen at the century's dawn, on 9/11. Every important, helpful and successful action that occurred on an awful day was taken by self-mobilized citizens and amateurs. At a moment when professionalism failed at every level. (Hear a podcast on this topic.)

It is important to note what a strong role technology played in fostering citizen action on 9/11. People equipped with video cameras documented the day and provided our best post-mortem footage. People with cell phones organized the evacuation of the twin towers. Similar phones stirred and empowered the heroes who fought back and made the Legend of Flight UA 93.

In sharp contrast, the events of Hurricane Katrina showed the dark side of this transition -- a professional protector caste (crossing party and jurisdiction lines: including republicans and democrats, state, local and federal officials) whose sole ambition appeared to be to staunch any citizen-organized activity, whatsoever. Moreover, the very same technology that empowered New Yorkers and Bostonians betrayed citizens in New Orleans. Thousands who had fully-charged and operational radios in their pockets were unable to use them for communication -- either with each other or the outside world -- thanks to collapse of the cellular phone networks.

This was a travesty. But the aftermath was worse! Because, amid all the finger-pointing and blame-casting that followed Katrina, almost no attention has been paid to improving the reliability and utility of our cell networks, to assist citizen action during times of emergency. To the best of my knowledge. no high level demand has gone out - from FEMA or any other agency - for industry to address problems revealed in the devastation of America's Gulf Coast. A correction that should be both simple/cheap and useful to implement.

What do we need? We must have new ways for citizens to self-organize, both in normal life and (especially) during crises, when normal channels may collapse, or else get taken over by the authorities for their own use. All this might require is a slight change -- or set of additions -- in the programming of the sophisticated little radio communications devices that we all carry in our pockets, nowadays.

How about a simple back-up mode for text messaging? One that could use packet-switching to bypass the cell towers when they are down, and pass messages from phone to phone -- or peer-to-peer -- at least among phones that are of the same type? (GSM, TDMA, CDMA etc.) All of the needed packet-switching algorithms already exist. Moreover, this would allow a drowning city (or other catastrophe zone) to fill with tens of thousands of little spots of light, supplying information to helpers and reassurance to loved ones, anywhere in the world.

Are the cell companies afraid their towers will be bypassed when there's no emergency? What foolishness. This mode could be suppressed when a good tower is in range and become useful automatically when one is not... a notion that also happens to help solve the infamous "last mile connectivity problem." Anyway, there are dozens of ways that p2p calls could be billed. Can we at least talk about it?

The same dismal intransigence foils progress on the internet, where millions of adults use "asynchronous" communications methods, like web sites, blogs and email, but shun "synchronous" zones like chat and avatar worlds, where the interface (filled with sexy cartoon figures) seem designed to ruin any chance of useful discourse. For example, by limiting self-expression to about a sentence at a time and ignoring several dozen ways that human beings actually organize and allocate scarce attention in real life.

When somebody actually pays attention to this "real digital divide" - between the lobotomized/childish synchronous chat/avatar/myspace world and the slow-but-cogent asynchronous web/blog/download world -- we may progress toward useful online communities like rapid "smart mobs." Only first, we are going to have to learn to look at how human beings allocate attention in real life! (For more on this: http://www.holocenechat.com)

Oh, there are dozens of other technologies that will add together, like pieces in a puzzle, synergizing to help empower the magnificent citizen of tomorrow. Facial recognition systems and automatic lookups will turn every pedestrian on any street into someone who you vaguely know... a prospect that cynical pundits will decry, but that was EXACTLY how our ancestors lived, nearly all of them, throughout human history. The thing to be afraid of is asymmetries of power, not universal knowledge. The thing to protect is not your secrecy, but your ability to deter others from doing you harm.

Likewise, I assure you that we are on the verge of getting both LIE DETECTORS and reliable PERSONALITY PROFILING. And yes, if these new machines frighten you, they should! Because they may wind up being clutched and monopolized by elites, and then used against us. I am glad you're frightened. If that happens, we will surely see an era that makes Big Brother look tame.

And yet, the solution to this danger is not to "ban" such technologies! That is exactly what elites want us to do (so they can monopolize the methods in secret out of our skeptical eye). No, that reflex sees only half the story. Come on, open your mind a little farther.

What if those very same -- inevitable -- technologies wind up being used by all of sovereign citizens of an open democracy, say, fiercely applied to politicians and others who now smile and croon and insist that they deserve our trust? In other words, what if we could separate the men and women who have told little lies and admit it (and we forgive them) from those who tell the really dangerous and destructive whoppers? Those who are corrupt and/or blackmailed and/or lying through their teeth?

In that case, won't we have a better chance of making sure that Big Brother doesn't happen... ever?

Oh, it is a brave new world... We will have to be agile. Some things will be lost and others diminished. (We will have to re-define "privacy" much closer to home, or even just within it.)

On the other hand, if we don't panic, we may see the beginnings of the era of the sovereign and empowered citizen. An Age of Amateurs in which no talent is suppressed or wasted, and no problem escapes the attention of a myriad talented eyes.

=====    =====     =====


As many of you know, I have touted the beautiful and fascinating Worldchanging Book as a perfect holiday gift, expressing much of the resonant message of modernist problem solving that we once saw in the old Whole Earth Catalog.

World changing is also one of the prime modernist web sites! Indeed, I'd like to pass on a message from editor Alex Steffen, asking for a little help (in the spirit of "proxy power.") The previous riff I wrote at his request.

" Okay, here's the deal: I need to hit you up for some money. Not much, only $10, but still, your donation is critical for us, and here's why: Yahoo! is offering a $50,000 matching grant for the nonprofit which gets the largest number of donations before the end of the year using its new "charity badges." What matters is not the number of dollars, but the number of donors. Right now, you need 70 to be in the lead, but things are moving fast and we'd like 500 to be safe. We currently have three (though we just started a couple hours ago). If we're winning on Dec 31st, we think one of our major donors may step in and help us with a large donation, so we'll get the full $50K from Yahoo! $100,000 would be a major portion of our annual budget and you can help us win it."

Got it? Do it! Good.