Organizing the unorganized has always taken too much time. The organized have always had a long period of warning about threats to their organization and thus the time to disorganize the unorganized. Until now.
The speed and networking capabilities of communication, and the relatively rapid assembly of the self-organizing structures they enable, is now faster than the hierarchical structures can organize themselves to disorganize. You can't be me, I'm taken
The speed and networking capabilities of communication, and the relatively rapid assembly of the self-organizing structures they enable, is now faster than the hierarchical structures can organize themselves to disorganize.
I have to disagree. My experience (works council) is that the limiting constraint on organizing a group is not the speed of communication but the learning curve - getting people to realize that is in their interest to show active solidarity with those in the same situation, rather than with those who are more powerful. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
EDSA Revolution of 2001, leading to the deposing of President Estrada On the evening of January 16, 2001, the impeachment court voted not to open an envelope that was alleged to contain incriminating evidence against the president. The final vote was 11-10, in favor of keeping the envelope closed. The prosecution panel (of congressmen and lawyers) walked out of the Impeachment Court in protest of this vote. The 11 senators who voted not to open the envelope are known as the "Craven Eleven." That night, anti-Estrada protesters gathered in front of the EDSA Shrine at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, not too far away from the site of the 1986 People Power Revolution that overthrew Ferdinand Marcos. A political turmoil ensued and the clamor for Estrada's resignation became stronger than ever. In the following days, the number of protesters grew to the hundreds of thousands. On January 19, 2001, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes, seeing the political upheaval throughout the country, decided to withdraw his support from the president and transfer his allegiance to the vice president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The following day, the Supreme Court declared that the seat of presidency was vacant, saying that Estrada willfully vacated his post. At noon, the Chief Justice swore in the constitutional successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as Acting President of the Philippines. Estrada and his family fled the presidential palace in fear for their lives.
On the evening of January 16, 2001, the impeachment court voted not to open an envelope that was alleged to contain incriminating evidence against the president. The final vote was 11-10, in favor of keeping the envelope closed. The prosecution panel (of congressmen and lawyers) walked out of the Impeachment Court in protest of this vote. The 11 senators who voted not to open the envelope are known as the "Craven Eleven." That night, anti-Estrada protesters gathered in front of the EDSA Shrine at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, not too far away from the site of the 1986 People Power Revolution that overthrew Ferdinand Marcos. A political turmoil ensued and the clamor for Estrada's resignation became stronger than ever. In the following days, the number of protesters grew to the hundreds of thousands. On January 19, 2001, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes, seeing the political upheaval throughout the country, decided to withdraw his support from the president and transfer his allegiance to the vice president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The following day, the Supreme Court declared that the seat of presidency was vacant, saying that Estrada willfully vacated his post. At noon, the Chief Justice swore in the constitutional successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as Acting President of the Philippines. Estrada and his family fled the presidential palace in fear for their lives.
How did hundreds of thousands get mobilized over 3 days? Group SMS. Speed was the deciding factor, because the protestors got 'organized' faster than the authorities could react.
2) 15.000 bikers drove though a Wiltshire town yesterday to honour troops killed in Afghanistan. Wooton Bassett is close to RAF Lyneham where the bodies return home.
During each repatriation, hundreds of people turn out to stand in silence as the coffins pass through. Today's crowds again gathered along the High Street as over 10,000 motor bikers, carrying 5,000 pillion passengers, passed the war memorial. The ride, believed to the biggest of its kind, has raised more than £100,000 for the charity Afghan Heroes. Steve Bucknell, the Wootton Bassett Mayor, said: "The vast majority of the people of the town fully support what the bikers are doing today. "Too many times the town has had to stand still in silence but today is all about noise and movement." Laurence Phillips, from Afghan Heroes, said the event gathered pace after being posted on social networking site Facebook.
Steve Bucknell, the Wootton Bassett Mayor, said: "The vast majority of the people of the town fully support what the bikers are doing today. "Too many times the town has had to stand still in silence but today is all about noise and movement." Laurence Phillips, from Afghan Heroes, said the event gathered pace after being posted on social networking site Facebook.
A teenage girl - pillion on her boyfriends bike - had the idea and posted it to facebook, with the idea of just her biker 15 friends going together. But it snowballed. Everyone paid €5 to ride, and 100.000 pounds was collected for the charity Afghan Heroes. I understand that there was no shortage of volunteers from the facebook fellow bikers to help with the logistics.
It is not about bikers or Presidents. It's about systems of communication that have never been in the hands of the mass of people before. I can't really predict what they are going to do with it, but I have some ideas.
It is not spontaneous combustion - although it requires a potential in a large audience for the system emerge. It also requires individuals or groups to be the 'particles in suspension' round which snow or carbon dioxide accumulate. You could say catalysts, also. Or flies in the ointment. It is the first messages sent out by these catalysts that are important. Usually it is their sincerity (and simplicity) that convinces.
Increasingly I'm having conversations with coders in the networking business about these first messages. In Finland, these are young, socially aware people, and often entrepreneurs. Yes, they will do a complex CMS corporate website for money, but in between they are testing their own experiments in online interaction. If you think I'm crazy, you should listen to them ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
Where a consensus exists, you're right: the only constraints are the speed of communication, and modern technology makes it possible to organize action faster than "authorities" can intervene.
OTOH, "organizing" in the sense of building a consensus in the first place requires a lot of steady, time-consuming effort, often one-on-one. Here new technical tools and paradigms can enhance range, but not speed.
This is particularly true when the aim is not just to organize one-off actions but movements with sustained follow-through. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
I've seen some interesting consensus online software.
First, the software has tools for the promotion of information about 'the project' to potential interested parties. The potential core group will be found using search optimization, visitor tracking, email monitoring and all the other tools for reaching a specific audience.
Then it allows this core group to formulate questions that must be asked in order to find the consensus. Anyone can add as many questions as they like. All visible RT. The usefulness of each question is tested by a simple response by any user - in a 10 point agree/disagree range. There's a closing date for the circulation. A quorum of registered responders is needed (TBD)
A forum allows discussion at any stage.
Then the list of questions is asked with the same mode of response and limitations. This process is intended to filter out extreme views. The data analysis on this kind of process (depending what you want to find out) is relatively simple. What you really want to know is, is there a consensus? That's what this software does.
In some beta-testing they did, admittedly with a fairly captive audience of thousands of university students, 3 days of iterations were enough to find a consensus, with many users changing their answers as they saw what other people were answering - but at a late point there was a massive shift all in one direction. Thus people were compromising on their individual views to some extent, in some kind of loyalty to the ideas under discussion. This kind of phenomenon is present on a smaller scale in ET.
3 days is a short time.
There are, so I was told, web applications already existing for this kind of consensus seeking, although all are intended for a corporate organization. I haven't come across any of them. But my Den Haag guru will no doubt know them.
I am sure that face to face remains vital in local situations. But this type of software will have a major effect on national campaigns imho. You can't be me, I'm taken
My frame of reference is workplace-level organizing. There the problem is that employees have adopted the employer's narrative, and the challenge is to convince them to ditch that in favor of a solidarity-based view. And the reality (in my experience, anyway) is that given a choice, people choose to side with the powers that be. So this process takes a whole lot of one-on-one time. This is not to say that tech tools cannot help, but they cannot supercharge the process.
Once consensus is reached on that level, of course, the tools you describe become awesomely effective. But the hard part is getting granny to bring out her pots and pans. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
I'm writing about Smart Grids at the moment for a client. Smart Grids enable two way communication within an energy system, and can accommodate all the intermittent sources (wind, wave, solar, etc). I'll post it here once the client has published it.
What we need for organizing is a Smart Grid of a different kind. You can't be me, I'm taken
