[wsfii-discuss] disasters and telecom

Sun Oct 16 09:09:51 UTC 2005

God Saul, that's a bit pessimistic? I think it's very likely that
greater change may be on the way and the decline of life as we, in the
West, know it (Jim)  in which case the more people are able to combine
global political and economic systems (and dependencies) with local
social, political and economic independencies, the better life will be.
The more we're able to understand one-another, negotiate, and
collaborate better on a global scale, the more peaceful life will be.

Sorry to repeat what everyone already knows, but I think it's worth
potting here.

I think new communications technologies will have/are already having the
kind of world-historical impact which the printing press did (in the
context of economic expansionism in Europe) - decentred synchronous and
asynchronous communication raising awareness and offering new
organisational possibilities being a major factor in the "world turned
upside down" - and a fundamental redefinition of European social,
economic and regulatory power structures. Without it, the English Civil
War - the first step in establishing democracy in Britain - would never
have happened.

Vis the massive efforts by repressive and technologically able
governments such as USA and China to police and control the internet.
Unfortunately computer communications also increase capacity for
surveillance as well as concentration of resources in relatively few
hands - it's not just proprietary controls we need to worry about here.

UCT's allow people to communicate collectively and conveniently over
small or vast distances relatively cheaply and largely on their own
terms.  They can facilitate decentred forms of organisations which have
proven again and again to be the only effective ways to challenge
economic and political goliaths of globalisation. On a more emotional
and human level, it can provide the tools to ameliorate the personal
isolation experienced by so many in urban life - or even rural life if
you a bit "different". It gives us the tools to shape the ecocnomic,
political, and social future in less threatening ways - and we have to
do it, or the future could look very bleak. Imagine how European
capitalism might have developed without the resource of the printing
press and its capacity to inform and co-ordinate popular protest -
brrrr! No peasants' revolt, no Levellers, no reformist civil war, no
Luddites, no 1789, no 1848, no 1917, no trades unions, no emancipation
or suffrage movements, no Jarrow march and no postwar labour landslide.
No universal education and healthcare, no prison reforms . . . need I go
on?

UCTs can't overcome acts of God and certainly can't control the
callousness of the response of the USA governnment to the suffering
caused by Katrina or the lack of resources hampering response in
Pakistan. What it can do is restore contact with relief operations *and*
with each other. Besides the more obvious causes of grief and
deprivation, the panicky feeling of having lost control and
co-ordinationn of your life is something, at least, which could be
addressed by UCT comms. I think it worth noting that several East
African states avoided mass casualties from the Indian Ocean Tsunami by
the simple expedient of broadcasting a warning on the radios people use
to listen to the World Service on. Whilst we all buy trannies now, radio
was also originally a UCT.

I think UCT's *will* change the world, but obviously they are only one
of many forces at work. On the negative side, I'd say that if we don't
succeed in popularising UCTs at least to some extent, democracy (such as
it is) will decline in leaps and bounds and the trend in concentrating
resources among a very small proportion of the global population will
worsen. We can't tackle such macro issues on a global scale. Response
has to be locally based and networked outward. UCT's facilitate this - a
role not to be overestimated, but not to be underestimated either.

Well, maybe that's an eensy bit less pessimistic! I think the point is
that if you feel powerless you *are* powerless.

Paula

Saul Albert wrote:

>On Sat, Oct 15, 2005 at 06:02:02PM +0100, vortex wrote:
>  
>
>>and all your .... will help  
>>human suffering how?
>>    
>>
>
>Hi vortex,
>
>It's a good question, for any occasion! :) I was wondering about that
>too: how do the dream systems that the people who came to limehouse
>actually impact on the people passing by on the A13 in their cars, in
>Limehouse area generally, in Greater London - or anywhere in the very
>different places that people have been and travelled from to get there.
>
>I realy have no idea - but Keith Hart had some interesting ones. He spoke
>on the Open Money panel (which I think was by far the most politically
>radical, which perhaps had something to do with it also having the
>greatest mean age of any of the panels :) - 
>
>http://nodel.org/wsfii/wsfii-day2-audio/13CommunityCurrencies.mp3
>
>His opinion, which I think is in line with many astute observers of
>political / economic / ecological trends, is that the world is going to
>hell in a handbag, and pretty soon life is going to get harder for
>everyone and we all get really poor, really fast.
>
>I guess that will be when we find out how the relationships, techniques,
>technologies, and dream systems we've built give us the ability to
>co-operate on a really large scale, as clock is suggesting.
>
>I guess I find this pretty scary and disheartening in the long term, but
>in the short term it's a great excuse to keep amusing myself by playing
>with cool stuff!
>
>Cheers,
>
>Saul.
>
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>  
>