I (still) think ET needs some kind of formal grounding...a participatory structure with roots beyond the internet. I mean, a members structure of some kind (and oh so open, and free at the point of entry etc.)...well, I banged on about that before!
Against that, if ET is an online magazine (a very good one), then forcing it into one box or t'other might hurt that. Printing presses are often owned by one enlightened individual coz the various areas of the magazine live in different (and sometimes conflicting) worlds. To give it one direction could be to push it away from others...
(btw I post diaries to a) enjoy myself, b) hope others enjoy reading them and c) storage for ideas/pics/quotes I've picked up and would like to refer to later. So I'm on the edge of any discussion about moving things forward in a political-activism sense...I don't have the experience or the knowledge. I can offer enthusiasm and comments I s'pose, but I don't think that's worth a great deal without...well, I'm back to my point at the top.)
And there's always the question of time/energy/commitment. To really make (a) change(s) will take extra work, will or may be burdensome at times. And although we have some agreements here, we also have disagreements (e.g. nuclear power.)
And, importantly, certain tasks will go beyond the "I can afford to do this for free; it costs time not money" part of our lives...
For instance. It's clear to me that anyone investing in solar/wind tech. at present will make money. Setting up a factory to manufacture components etc. (or whatever...etc...) would be a wise use of anyone's time and money...run the whole progressive program through every step (hiring/firing/building/materials/advertising/etc.) But I don't have the money, the knowledge, or any relevant skill set for such a project. Yet I think ET would be a great place to bring together the kind of people (and money) that could.
So, I thought we could move ahead small-steps-style by re-locating the site in Europe, getting some basic payment and ownership system worked out (ownership=extra sense of belonging with all the other owners?) I was pleased to see that Canard Enchaine makes money and political waves and is owned by the journalists...that's my kind of thinking.
I agree with your questions, and that's enough of me trying to answer 'em. Let the big brains type! Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Not all diaries here are the dissemination of knowledge/opinion, they can also be requests for knowledge. You'll find quite a few headlines have a question mark at the end of them.
Feedback is important, of course. It is only human nature that one's time spent here, whether creating a diary, or on an exchange of comments, is appreciated. The one thing we never really know is how many people actually read without making their presence known. There is nothing wrong with lurking - today's lurker may be tomorrow's diarist ;-)
It can be daunting that ETers are not afraid to disagree - but I have never seen it happen except to regulars.
So get started! You can't be me, I'm taken
The disagreements here are unusual, though, in that one often learns something from them about the topic, rather than (as at many blogs) learning about prevalent reading skills, levels of knowledge, and human nature. ---------------
Which prompts a side comment --
It is perhaps not fully appreciated that the following pattern makes comment threads deceptive as statistical pictures of the blog's readership, or even of the writership. The following facts are painfully obvious:
Conclusion: The blogosphere community is much more sensible and agreeable it seems, so there is more hope for the world than we perceive, and everyone should cheer up, at least incrementally. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
(We love to be contrarians here on ET) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
brilliant individuals
What are we going to do with it?
I'm a newbie so I cannot really comment on this in any comprehensive way but I do wonder if any regulars could let us know what "the whole picture" might be? If any ? The only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for enough good people to do nothing
People are not very used to this concept - even though it is something we use every day with our friends and our non-official lives. We've all been 'trained' to wait for someone to tell us what to do. It will never happen in this kind of community.
In all organic cellular systems - like a tree, for instance, each unit adjusts according to how its neighbours adjust. This process of adjusting does produce a very beautiful thing - a tree. But no single cell can say "Let's have a branch growing over that way". The branch emerges out of the process.
So you just have to start adjusting ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
Bear in mind that I am a rather anarchistic person and have learnt and used the tools of non-hierachial structures before. So I was one who got this quite easily (which just meant even more work trying to unlearn the rest).
The impuls to wait for orders is just so ingrained in our backs. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Anger and frustration are still the main motivators for doing something. Our western society is built on the premise that happiness is a large footprint, and once you are in the trap of maintaining that footprint you don't want to rock the boat. It's how Class A drug dealers work.
One of the solutions is to have a small footprint. You can't be me, I'm taken
Every successful open-source project scratches a developer's itch [or something to that effect] — Eric S. Raymond in The Cathedral and the Bazaar Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
"Seule la verite peut venir a bout de l'injustice. La verite, ou bien l'amour" Albert Camus When through hell, just keep going. W. Churchill
Only truth can overcome injustice. Truth, or love.
Personally, my main motivation (well of course besides validation) to diary something is to 'spread the word'. Silly hope that advocacy might have more effect if a few others are convinced, or to get some understanding. From Lebanon diaries to train diaries. (Even my autumn blogging was kind of a tourist commercial...) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
?????????
Looked to me like you were talking about humanity and the beauty of the earth.
The goal for me is to become an influential voice in public debate (I was going to write policy debate, then political debate, but it's both and more). Scoop (the software for sites like dKos and ET) makes it within grasp of unknown writers on the internet, but the critical mass is still elusive. The trick is to get the combination of the brilliance of individual voices (more than one) and the readership of a mass publication. Getting readers to write and be read - and to let writers know what they think is something new and still not fully explored. There is an element of direct democracy, with all the associated risks of populism and cliques.
I'm glad that you see standards maintained here. We also have not to lose our soul in the process. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
There is, of course, the question whether what makes ET so good is the fact that it's a still a fairly small group compared to other blogs. If it becomes too populist, it might lose some of its "homey" quality. I think that quite a few people on this blog, through a meaningful and often daily interaction, have formed a sort of a relationship, which is what makes ET appealing as well, I believe -- to be known and recognized. And people got on very well face-to-face, as we could see in Paris. My idea was to draw on this closeness rather than recruiting masses of new readers, and bring one of the many ideas that float around here into life by working together. I do realize that that might require more commitment than many might be prepared to make, because, as Miguel correctly pointed out yesterday, we all have a life and need to make money and feed our families etc. There is also the geographical distance (how many Londoners are here, actually?), which could become a problem if the work we would do moved away from the Internet.
Anyway. I haven't read all the comments yet, so I'm going to see what people are saying :).
"If you cannot say what you have to say in twenty minutes, you should go away and write a book about it." Lord Brabazon
Probably we would need four times more readers to start networking and working in small projects where the load of work will not be very high, the quality good and then the possibility of succes not taht relevant (spending one afternoon and getting no evident results is OK, spending all the month weekends and not getting anything.. well... I think nobody would do it).
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
I think we just need to be patient and people with connections will end up finding ET. Also, if we continue writing letters to politicians, we should make it explicit that, apart from being "a forum for civic debate" it is open to them to post things here, too. Maybe that way we could have some sort of informal conversations with people with connections. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
ET lacks a party base, so there's no way to hook up the work here to an existing machine - which is a big handicap.
Such a thing could be possible, but it requires some conscious networking efforts.
I don't mind so much if that's not quite happening yet. But if we're all still in exactly the same place a couple of years from now, that would be a good reason to start being pushier about external contacts.
On the other hand, if Jerome wants to stand for anything in the EU - he has the beginnings of a network. I'd vote for him. Party, anyone? You can't be me, I'm taken
Does that makes sense?
I'm hoping the same for ET. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
That makes two of us. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
L'exarchat est une organisation de certains territoires périphériques de l'empire byzantin, mise en place au VIe siècle pour faire face à la menace d'envahisseurs. L'exarchat est dirigé par un «exarque» qui concentre les pouvoirs civils et militaires.
Ain't easy coming up against the system.... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
you are the media you consume.
What I mean as your connections are your highly educated friends from Paris and your prominence on large blogs like dKos, Booman Tribune and The Oil Drum. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Because of past projects, I can get in a lot of doors because people still remember who I am. But, once inside, I have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to persuade people to even slightly change their ways. It is exhausting and I often find myself compromised.
For instance, I deal quite a lot with brand issues and yet I believe that branding (as it is understood today) is dead. What I try to persuade companies to do is to look at who they really are and who they want to be (and why they want to be) and then try to alter outside perceptions to fit the 'real' personality of the company. However fiction keeps intruding because companies are so scared - they want to be someone they can never be. My compromise is in having to deal with this - and coping with such things as mission statements and vision statements that are just self-serving crap that consume huge amounts of corporate time and then are put in a drawer and forgotten.
I feel genuinely embrrassed to take their money. The guilt is only softened by the fact that I can then buy time to work on the things that I believe in.
I have come to the conclusion that bottom-up is the only way things are going to change. Or perhaps middle-up/middle down. So I focus these days on trying to convert people whose minds are not yet closed by power, but still have enough knowledge to understand the system they work in. It's slow.
In a couple of weeks I will face 30 very heavy institutional investors. I am going to try to explain SOS to them in 30 minutes. Daunting. I'm going to attempt it by humour and a lot of visuals. All there is to hope for is to plant a seed of doubt, supported by the use of a name they might recognize - Charles Handy has been rated among the Thinkers 50, the most influential living management thinkers. He co-founded the London Business School.
This is what he has said:
"It is a paradox that in our democratic societies it is only the corporations that are resolutely undemocratic. This will become more blatant as the front-line workers find their voice - a voice that organizations will ignore at their peril...
In this new world people want to be regarded as belonging to something, not just used by it, as members not employees, citizens not human resources. They want a voice in what concerns them, the chance and the right to make a difference".
It will be a drop in the ocean, of course. But even if just one of these people wants a chat afterwards, it will have been worthwhile.
OK this has been my usual I,I,I, rap. But the point I wanted to make is that humour and visuals are powerful tools for sneaking in mind-benders. The most difficult part of the communication process is the last 5 centimeters. And another aphorism "It's not what you want to say, but what people are ready to hear"
These are all things that should be remembered here at ET. Being right is not enough. Having all the facts is not enough. And we should think more about Changing The Game, than playing it. You can't be me, I'm taken
Let's start talking seriously about changing the game then. Like Barbara said, the strongest vibe that ET gives out is that of underutilised talent. That's probably in many ways a misperception but still...
And we should think more about Changing The Game, than playing it.
I want to understand the meta-game so I can change the game. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
The Simpsons are on Fox, is what I mean.
But we are separated geographically. So the meta-game for us is linguistic in the first instance, hence the "magazine" appearance of ET: writing words in such a way that they have effects in the world...word magic. I think building up a discourse around sustainability...what does it mean, what do we all HAVE to do if we are activists towards a sustainable Europe? (That's where I see the focus.)
So changing the game is changing the use and focus of language. We all post for different reasons, but if there is a focus on...well...I'd say a focus on getting away from the moneyman intermediary. Not that abstract exchange value (etc.. Chris/Jerome, I bow etc...)..ya know, money is sometimes useful and often necessary. But if my power if free, my food grows around me, my house is well insulated against excess heat/cold...and I have access to the latest information...the latest wisdom...
Not sure I'm helping here, but I think as Sven says, the game starts with our own intentions, desires...our own ability to step outside of our various boxes, take a look around...
(Sven can explain how us not having a homunculus affects this ;) Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
On Radio 4 this morning, the 8:10 topic was Nuclear Fusion. The conversation was between an expert from (I think) California and (in the "reactionary" postion) a guy from Friends of the Earth. The conversation went something like this.
Nuclear Guy: The technology isn't there yet, but we're working towards it.
Friend of the Earth Guy: The timescales are too long; we need to invest in renewables now.
Nuclear Guy: I agree. We have our funding (From the U.S., Europe, Russia, India, and China) to build and run an experimental fusion reactor. I also think we should invest in renewables now.
The individual...you have to start somewhere--with yourself? But individuals live in groups...they aren't found in isolation. That mix of group and individual...the stones on the Go board...the particle/wave strangeness...I think they're all connected. I think there is a way to map our knowledge of the intimacies of nature ("outside"?) to the human situation ("inside"?) I cannae do it because I know too little about the "outside" part...but I think mapping across, using the knowledge to greatest effect...
Therefore when an army is headstrong, it will lose in a battle. When a tree is hard, it will be cut down. The big and strong belong underneath. The gentle and weak belong at the top.
I don't think this is mumbo nonsense, I think it is another attempt to...to eff the ineffable, as melo put it. Yet if this is indeed how nature works, then we can update 2000+ year old attempts at talking to the human condition with our latest knowledge...
For me, these are all means, if used correctly, to closing the gap between self and other, between individual and community...but I'm too dim to make the connections (as my Go playing demonstrates!)
And I may have wandered off topic (moi? ;) so ignore, move on, I just wanted to say something along these lines to try and clarify my thinking somewhat--I thank ET for the space to do so! Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
We've hit a small wall with the SOS project. The key guy on funding issues just took a job as communications director at one of the largest consulting groups in Finland, and I guess it will be a year before he has much spare time. He will take the hundreds of hours of discussions on SOS and changing the game that we've had, into that new job, and I trust that he will do what he can with it. But I am useless with the official funding application requirements of legalistic BS. They make my blood boil.
So I am thinking now of opening up the SOS discussion here. I'll talk it over with the Man from Lyons tomorrow. The university and business school connections remain solid - maybe I have to persuade them to come here to ET. Give me a little more time.
The students at Kaos Pilot business are the most interesting bunch I've met - and in the end it is they who will change the game (and indeed it was they who invented the slogan). The change is something that will happen with the next generation - the ones who will grow into organizations taking a natural facility with the networking technology that, to me, is driving the phase transition we have entered. You can't be me, I'm taken
But I could try to distill at least the audio-visual part into a diary.
Oh how I wish it were possible to just drag and drop animation into ET. I know the servers get loaded - but come on, a giga is less than 60 cents these days. You can't be me, I'm taken
It's Smeagol vs Gollum (just saw the Lord of the Rings cycle on Channel 4 these last 3 weeks - bloody brilliant)
On the one hand is Smeagol -the raison d'etre of the enterprise itself. eg Boeing came into existence to build good aircraft that airlines wanted.
Then there is Gollum, the Shareholders, driven by the Ring of Power.
The former is what the stakeholders identify with, but the shareholders (driven by the imperative of the Ring = Deficit-based Money) enforce - through their Nine Riders (the Directors) - a drive for short-term profit at the expense of all else.
The problem lies in the nature of the Corporation itself.
It is only if we can set up Corporations without a Rentier Monkey on the shoulder that the Brand dichotomy can be transcended. Businesses like John Lewis (owned by the Staff) achieve this, as can Coops, but businesses owned by "absentee landlord" shareholders are always going to be in trouble.
As you know, I believe that the "Open" Corporate (of which the LLP is the first example) enables us to achieve the participative outcome you describe. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Which leads me to the question: do we all need to understand everything? Can we rely instead upon a community back-up? Can we be united? This is why I like Migu's idea of an ET membership that can perhaps do more than discuss. You can't be me, I'm taken
I know what connections are, but I am curious as to what people mean on ET when they say, "we don't have connections" or as you just said maybe people "with connections" will join ET.
I am coming from the perspective that if connections are needed, and one doesn't have connections, then one needs to go and make connections.
So I am wondering what people on ET percieve that these people "with connections" will offer ET?
Second, where is Ritter these days? I haven't seen him in a long, long time.
As for going out and making connection, I should write a diary about how cliquish the English are.
The need to have "connections", and "you are who you know", and mutual back-scratching, were so contrary to my parents' (especially my father's) ethos that I can't say I have any either. And if I have them, I don't know about it, or if I knew I wouldn't want to use them. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
here there is a growing (motley) identity forming, there is a staggering amount of coherence, and yet very little cohesion.
a collection of spirited horses, difficult to harness as a team.
is some ways it was more interesting when there was more counterpoint, as when wchurchill posted.
but since we are mostly in agreement here now, there is more chance of being able to pull in the same direction, once we decide what to pull for...
so far it's been like a very above-average party, where you go home shaking your head at the improbability of meeting so many nice, funny, clued-in folks in one room.
while most blogs i find boring, ET shimmies along, serving as much-needed intellectual stimulation. i love the contrasts between wonky wonders and goofball yooma.
can we drop-ins ever become 'movers and shakers'?
prolly not, but we can let off steam wagging our digi-digits at those presuming to be....
satire acts as a brake to fanaticism, which has far too big a bootprint on all our lives.
fanaticism is prelude to fascism, and we all should and do worry about that.
what to do?
well, till we find a cause for yurp as worthy as kos has in restoring a nation, we can come and soothe our impatience, keeping each other as savvy as we can by speaking out and sharing our feelings, validating each others' perceptions, debunking propaganda (this would justify ET by itself), and reminding each other that loneliness is often geographical, and with this amazing technology we can disseminate opinions, sharing info (and even emotions) at lightning speed.
i see ET as a still-new machine, revving up in the hangar, getting ready to....matter a bit more?
or is that too much to hope for?
i think when we are ready to fly, the destination will emerge, and like you, i wonder if our virtual kaffeklatsching will bear fruit, or just the pretty blossoms of repartee that help the hard truths we face each day a little easier to swallow.
mux meta4s means time to end comment...
best meta ET diary yet, thanks barbara ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I have not seen any insults so far...
This is easily remedied:
"You have the intelligence of a bucket of rocks." "A mud pack is good for the complexion. I suggest you leave it on." "Thou weedy motley-minded baggage!" "You are so stupid, If you had a brain you'd take it out and play with it. " "You have as little honesty as honour." "Are you always an idiot, or just when I'm around?" "Don't let your mind wander - it's too small to be let out on its own." "If you were orphaned when you were a child, I feel sorry for you, but not for your parents." "You lisp and wear strange suits."
This is a full-service blog. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
Sorry if this sounds discouraging.
I have invited a great many people and I think exactly one of them created an account and hasn't used it much). Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
No acquitance in real life is someone whom I think ET would be for. On the other hand, I thought to invite another internet acquitance, a Spanish guy I befriended on the USENET, but his old identity disappeared since from USENET and his old website is off, and I can't Google him because apparently he shares the name of a writer... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I note I used "networking" in a much wider sense. What that Peruvian woman Barbara met did must have involved 'networking' at a very local level, i.e. getting together neighbours and waste disposal companies and maybe some bureaucrats to establish a system that Changed the World. For varied reasons, I think this basic level of networking is missing for almost all of us ET regulars. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
(Me, I'm happily uprooted from where I spent my formative years, but now live (after a roundabout wavy line strange shape path) only 26 miles down the road, so I have a lot of place recognition through time around me--which I enjoy and think is useful--nd contacts going back and out and across in strange temporal/physical directions. An ET eg, melo and eternalcityblues are in Italy (where I lived in the early 90s)--but neither grew up there (correct me if I'm wrong) and so I have (potential) connections there...whereas I've never been to the U.S., unlike a lot of contributors who have either lived there, visited for often extended periods, or are residents or citizens...a strange mix we have! Vive la polyphony! (Hat tip to rememberinggiap.) Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
One of the main problems of the politics on EU-level is the lack of accountability. Just look at the reporting from a minister-meeting. Every minister returns home and proclaims loudly to the pres what they salvaged from their greedy opponents and what they alas had to conceed. I have the feeling that if you compare all those statements you will find reforms that no one claims credit for and yet they passed and you will find stuff that everybody claims they loved that failed. I feel that way because no one checks them, there is no european public. And if you do not believe me, ask yourself which party groups advanced and which went back in the last EU-parliament elections? You probably do not know (except if you read it in an outdated comment of mine here at ET), but I guess that you do know which parties in your country that gained and which lost seats?
So I see ET as a way of building a european public sphere. And I think that is very important for changing Europe. If we can channel this into specific actions, all the better. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
That (being spectators of politics) is one criticism that has been leveled at ET... Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
Well, all I can say is, of all the muppets, here's who I'm closest to.
Famous quotes by The Great Gonzo.
and finally (and apparently this is his motto):
But hold on! Music. Incomprehensible mutterings and grumblings.... Strange suddenly crazed eyes. Makesa no sense. Of course! I'm no suave gonzo...I'm too dim...too ughy pug ooh groo grunt...No, say it ain't so boss...But then, on t'other hand, the passion, the, well, the animal intensity. Yes!
(Or maybe I'm Beaker, no, ah yes, heh heh, I think he would be Sam the Eagle, and he's definitely Sgt. Floyd Pepper, heh heh, and she's Lips, and she's certainly Miss Piggy....Hiiiii YA! <etc.... mumble mutter mumble mutter...> ;) Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
And if you'd like some dancing tips...
And, hey! How about King Prawn. Does he count?
(they say he knows a spanish maths/physics guy...but I can't comment any further.) Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Johnny Depp is definitely a good connection... :)! (He can teach us to talk like a pirate -- for details, ask Migeru.) "If you cannot say what you have to say in twenty minutes, you should go away and write a book about it." Lord Brabazon
Let me share something personal with you. When I first joined ET (November last year) I was at a crossroads, lost, and looking for the warmth of the tribe. That warmth I did find, and appreciation, and recognition, and much newer to me, humility. When I left, it was because what I sensed over there was too much of ego massage, perhaps not enough of my own, for that matter. I do not qualify to answer your so right to to the point questions as my own story with ET is too much of a love and hatred one.
Among the many things I owe ET is discovery that the tip jar is actually a great invention. Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you only have this single one (after Paul Claudel, rusty translation being my trade mark). Ego massage is dangerous only if that's all what it's about. ET is so much beyond that. And ego massage is good in a world otherwise made of doom day augurs. When through hell, just keep going. W. Churchill
So before the clock strikes midnight, is there any other sins you like to confess? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
