Milliongenerations:Meeting 31 Jul 09

Meeting on actions of milliongenerations.org

• Time: Friday 31 May 09 17:00 - 19:00 CET / 8 - 10 am PST

• Location: Utrecht, Veilinghavenkade 6, and via skype conference call

• Participants: MF, MM, MP, PH, RK, RvM

Notes on the meeting

(please add/modify)

• Discussed sustainable / resilient. Need both. Better not get locked in deeply in such discussions, use "continue".
• Interview project: each of us ask a question to some other person and report result. Question should appeal to other faculties beyond purely rational and be something along the line of "You have a phone call. An individual from a million generations in the future wants you on the phone." And then either "what would you ask them, what do you think they would say" or "wants your insight, what do you think we could offer them" or "they ask you what was your/your generation's most important contribution that helped them be alive" or "you can ask them what enabled them to maintain civilization all this time, what do you think they will say?"
• Foundation was set up, see/debate on how to organize it
• Core principles/values of milliongenerations are a good start, refine a bit, use what is on there now, everybody add thoughts. Try to be minimalizsitg.
• Plans for milliongenerations in one year
  • Interviews on the site (or youtube), learned from it
  • Better website, clearer, better structure, more inviting to contributions
    • what do we learn from others? E.g., The blogosphere, twitter, The Oil Drum (civilized, content specific discussion), SpaceCollective.org (attractive appearance), 6BillionOthers.org (great appearance, powerful message), Stack Overflow (intricate concepts, works well on the target group), X-Prizes
    • Environment to implement something in the direction of the million (clicks) for a million (generations) competition created in collaboration with an open source movement, such an environment should preferably be available for other questions (open/copyleft!)
  • Concepts for a competition and the passing of the milliongenerations:foundation to the winners of the competition
  • Succeeded in obtaining financing (digital pioneers?) and attract volunteers to achieve the above

• Actions
  • Digital Pioneers. Apply for round 17 in the summer! (call is still not out)
  • Find & contact suitable open source programming projects that could be supported to create a suitable platform
  • ...
  • Next meeting (when e.g., 18 Sep 17:00, where, how?)

The following comments are my (paul t. horan's) follow up notes from this morning's (7.31.09) tele=gathering

Hello fellow human life-forms,

Here are the books I mentioned at the end of our skype gathering earlier today = "Whuffie Factor" & "Future Scenarios"

Tara Hunt's less than 3 minute vid-clip explicating "whuffie" is worth checking out = http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com/2009/04/explaining-the-whuffie-factor-on-video/

David Holmgren's conclusion delivers a fairly quick read that I believe enriches some of the topics we covered earlier today = http://www.futurescenarios.org/content/view/37/45/

On "information" as a difference that makes a difference, see = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Bateson#Epigrams_coined_by_or_referred_to_by_Bateson

Bateson's "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" is another book worth reading.

Here's the article on the "netflix contest" I mentioned =

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/technology/internet/28netflix.html

Here's the Cluetrain Manifesto =

http://www.cluetrain.com/

And here's a solid bit on the origins of The Briarpatch Network" =

http://www.well.com/~mp/briars.html

Re: our English word "preposterous", kindly note "pre" meaning "before" and "post" meaning "after" referring to absurd arrangements of our priorities. If popular ignorance has already produced sufficiently preposterous societal circumstances, we may just help make more sense by intentionally and boldly and carefully and compassionately approaching current challenges from an apparently backwards perspective or at least from a sideways angle. Designing human activity systems today, especially the kinds of activity systems for which future generations are likely to feel genuine gratitude, are quite probably going to seem preposterous from traditional, conventional viewpoints.

Although I couldn't find a specific reference to Buckminster Fuller's theory of innovation, I did run across this = "The Art of Innovation: Polymaths and Universality of the Creative Process" by Robert Root-Bernstein from The international handbook on innovation By Larisa V. Shavinina http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=5UFLw_IMc_kC&oi=fnd&pg=PA267&dq=buckminster+fuller%27s+theory+of+innovation&ots=hpQmYjFyyq&sig=qzuj_Lcysq9Mi9YW0F192U8UbII#v=onepage&q=&f=false

And finally, here's a piece I've just posted to the YESSS site, which I finally got around to completing thanks to some of the inspired prompting that emerged throughout our "Million Generations" conversation this morning = http://www.yesss.info/content/node/27

Ciao for now,

paul