Douglas Rushkoff - Open Source Democracy
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- Опубліковано 11 жов 2024
- PUNKCAST1467 - Nov 5 2008. In the fifth lecture in Evan Korth's NYU Computers and Society course featured author, thinker and professor Douglas Rushkoff. His topic:"Open Source Democracy."
Following is the foreword, by Douglas Alexander, to Rushkoff's paper on the same topic:
"The internet has become an integral part of our lives because it is interactive. That means people are senders of information, rather than simply passive receivers of 'old' media. Most importantly of all, we can talk to each other without gatekeepers or editors. This offers exciting possibilities for new social networks, which are enabled - but not determined - by digital technology.
In the software industry, the open source movement emphasises collective cooperation over private ownership. This radical idea may provide the biggest challenge to the dominance of Microsoft. Open source enthusiasts have found a more efficient way of working by pooling their knowledge to encourage innovation.
All this is happening at a time when participation in mainstream electoral politics is declining in many Western countries, including the US and Britain. Our democracies are increasingly resembling old media, with fewer real opportunities for interaction.
What, asks Douglas Rushkoff in this original essay for Demos, would happen if the 'source code' of our democratic systems was opened up to the people they are meant to serve? 'An open source model for participatory, bottom-up and emergent policy will force us to confront the issues of our time,' he answers.
That's a profound thought at a time when governments are recognising the limits of centralised political institutions. The open source community recognises that solutions to problems emerge from the interaction and participation of lots of people, not by central planning.
Rushkoff challenges us all to participate in the redesign of political institutions in a way which enables new solutions to social problems to emerge as the result of millions interactions. In this way, online communication may indeed be able to change offline politics."
www.computersan...
I recommend Rushkoff's books--especially "Coercion"--to anyone interested in the sorts of issues McLuhan and Postman addressed. Great, insightful speaker and writer. Thanks for uploading this video.
My point is that hierarchy is older than 400 yrs... that's what we're talking about... and there has always been something (that smells like independence) which threatens any hierarchy (religious, socio-political, what have-you: monarchy, bureaucracy, oligarchy, whatever.) .... right now, the biggest threat to hierarchy is the internet and the proliferation of information. And there isn't anything that can be done about it. They are now utterly dependent on what we, the collective have created.
Actually the rise in living standards in any society is directly attributable to increasing access to information. Knowledge. Literacy.
'Originally we sent the slaves out of the city so we wouldn't have to look at the way they lived. And then we went out of the city and kind of sent them back in. It sort of went back and forth a couple of times. ...But this disconnect is built into the architecture of our world, the structure of our economy, and the psychology of our people. And reversing that is going to be slower then it might seem.' -Douglas Rushkoff
@zelikris that would be riseup technologies - the speaker there is Gabriella Coleman
Wow he talked about some of the same stuff I talk about. It's good to know I'm not alone in how I see the world.
@CosmosPrivateer
I don't see doors, windows or anything like that. Maybe because i'm already outside, walking away from the house ...
and if you read Life Inc he explains that the merchant class and local currency threatened that hierarchy.
What is the name of the largest non profit ISP, at 53:14? I can't make out what she said.
riseup.net/
The door is opening will we walk through?
It will close quickly.
@NLGRuMBL
There is no box ;)
@immayhem
I should have said very rich then.
we've had a problem with peripheral value creation for a much longer time than 400 years... hierarchy itself is based on centralized values creation and hegemony. and hierarchy is as old as civilization itself. I like Rushkoff (and I love the possibilities for Open Source philosophy) but I don't care for the oversimplifications in this lecture...
I think you are mistaken. Business , spec. capitalism is resp 4 the greatest rise in living standards in the history of humanity over the last 200 years. Labor itself does not by itself produce weath. Its the efficient and profitable use of land, capital (aka savings), and labor that give us wealth. The most skilled among us at generating wealth this way are called entrepreneurs. Wages the price of labor. Inflation is real and caused by governmt, we need gold standard to stop it.
Hey why ad hominem attack? Monetary policy of gov and the fed favors indebtedness. The change that we need to eliminate the federal reserve and return to some semblance of a gold or metal money standard. This way the gov will not be able to print money out of thin air and give this new money to its friends at goldman sachs. Inflation is the main problem and its at the root of the current financial crises. Business is not the problem, business gives us production and wealth.
That maybe true to an extent but the ability of a certain society to exploit another has been much more successful.
I would say the exploitation of others and your ability to do this with no morale responsibility is what separates the rich from the poor.