2003-04-23 Smart Mobs/ Technology Innovation and Collective Action Howard Rheingold http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2003/view/e_sess/3752 ==== So, as normal: personal comments are [bracketed] ==== First slide You Can Create Tools That Amplify Collection Action "Innovate our way out of the enclosures growing around us" Technologies and cooperation: democracy, science, stock markets Cooperation is what makes us human -- groups larger than extended families found a way to work together to hunt big game. Interesting mention of the printing press: didn't create science or democracy, but enabled them? Unix, internet, web: enabled by collective action -- now mentioning that the people who made these were "visionary" enough not to build in obstructions to other people extending it. [this is kind of unique for these things? science/ democracy, these evolve: democracy coming out of the polis-pool] Early Signs of Technocollective Action: . Computational: p2p, Wikpedia, WiFi, social software (he mentions: wiki, forum, email list, IM.. as tools that let people act together) . Political: US, Korean (president was behind 3 days before the election. but they mobilised with SMS and tipped the election [is this a case of transparency? no one will be the first person to step out and say "i'll vote like this" but if there's a lot of people saying that, then they will. that's mentioned specifically in Smart Mobs?]), Kenyan, antiwar, moveon.org Consumers/users: . Consumers passively receive broadcast: radio, tv, movies [are people forced into the consumer role because the medium doesn't *allow* them to take part?]. rhiengold says that corporations want to take us back to the 3 tv stations world. [why, what's in it for them? if we don't understand this, we can't steer them] . Users actively shape media, create as well as consume, link together for collective action: PC, internet, web [these are media where you leave a trail when you consume. and if that's the case, you might-as-well take advantage of the fact, as a producer.] Fight to remain users: . Politically. Trusted computing, compromise of end-to-end, control of spectrum, etc. [but shouldn't the fight be to build media which *include* the leaving-traces aspect? because then the "user" thing might be inevitable? so the trick is to transform these values we have into something that makes sense from the perspective of the *economic hero myth*.] . Technically: think about how to innovate in favour of user-power Defend your freedom to innovate: . Prevent incumbents from excluding newcomers . Make networks of devises, human communication media, a portion of the EM spectrum available for experimentation [what's he grasping towards here? I think there's a gut instinct that we have to create systems in which technology can evolve. have groups found this to be the best method for problem solving?] . invent: micropayments, solutions to the IP problem Encourage self-organising networks . People and devices, mobile, networked and pervasive -- now plugging how great mobile phones with internet access are . Trust mechanisms are pivotal. Will reputation evolve? We lack a mechanism to identify the strangers we walk past might have a bicycle for sale, or be interested in a date. Reputation systems could fix that? "Social capital that's just leaking into the air now, could really be captured and put to work for us" Preserve Freedom of Information in Places He's asking whether the people who live at 5th & Maine will be allowed to tag their neighbourhood, or will it be owned by the franchise. [isn't this the spectrum argument? there's no limit on the data that can be tagged there] . When Every Thing Has a Store. Who will be allowed to read and write them? Cool: barcode scanner --> look up field online --> google for the vender name stored there --> get information back about them "If you can crack open that barcode..." [nice metaphor for unpacking] but barcodes are about to be replaced by RFIDs, we might not retain the ability to tag information on them. [the right to grafitti? it's the semiotcracy. an obligation for people to put an open signifier on everything produced.] Links . www.rheingold.com . www.smartmobs.com QUESTIONS Q. Society is full of compromises to protect ourselves from each other. How does that work out? A. "Only geeks mess with defaults". [it's only certain people that explore, go off the beaten track, find shops that are the default result of the swerve] Q2. But what about people with cameras in lockerrooms, etc? A. . "Problem is it's assymmetric. People are watching us and we don't know them" . What happens when these cameras are linked to databases, and they can do facial recognition? [the assymmetry is fascinating. in the real world, breaking the symmetry - not leaving traces, decoupling the input cursor and output cursor - is really hard. so our morality is build like that. secret properties of the real world: output is proportionate to input; input and output are colocated. online systems should be like this?] Q. Something A. Something else... mishear: "you can go to someone's door and punch them in the nodes" Q. First Amendment vs strong libel laws; relation to reputation systems A. "Reputation doesn't belong to the individual, it belongs to the system that the individual interacts with". [hm. I'm soo ambivalent about this. If people don't have the ability to defend themselves, shouldn't we protect them? Does he mean "belong" as in owning houses, or owning consequences of actions?] Q. A disconnect: technological and individual solutions to the problem. This is a bad thing, we can't just innovate our way out of this problem. [from IRC, alternative phrasing: "Lane Becker: Geek determinism got us here -- how can geek tech solve this?"] A. [I *think* he's saying something really difficult. We *do* have to build/ change a system, but build one with all the checks and balances so no-one will control it, and have evolvability.] Q. Cory's talking about the online entities being groups, random number generators, sunspots transformed into binary. does this matter that we don't know? A. Nope. If the reputation says 'trust it' that's fine. "Reputation is operational" (but "If I offer to give them a ride and there's 14 hundred of them, that's not going to work out"). "Do I trust this entity for this transaction". Very exciting for economists ==== Rumblings. . ah, the knot-like thing is the generic for the EFF's chilling effects . Cory's notes: http://craphound.com/hlretcon2003.txt . current input streams: Rheingold, IRC, Hydra . current output streams: Hydra (a little), this doc . later on IRC: " zool : politcs was derived from polis - the city... the infrastructure of public discourse and display??? (out-of-depth, can u tell???)" . More online notes: http://www.crystalflame.net/archives/000049.html . I wonder where the IRC log is? . http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/001431.html . Good commentary on corporate-created media: http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/04/ is_industry_evil_a_response_to_rheingold.shtml