Global Guerrillas

JOURNAL: Simple Formulations For Open Source Ventures

Here's an excruciatingly simple example of a formula for an open source venture using a little of what we've been discussing. It's intended to be used as a starting point for discussion. Feedback is very welcome.  

The intent is to eliminate:

• barriers to entry for new participants -- very simple to join, skill up and meaningfully participate.
• the need for a hierarchy that provides day to day management/ownership control
• the limits to scalability (so a venture can scale to millions of participants without stress on anything other than the technical infrastructure).

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This simple formulation doesn't include mechanisms for more complex tasks (it's not that these can't be constructed, but that they are constructed differently).

• Defined task. Clearly defined steps (modular software process). Steps 1, 2, 3 completed in sequence = completed task.
• Feedback. Global reputation. Venture reputation. Task specific feedback. A process that mitigates against misbehavior/gaming of the system. A process that amplifies good behavior.
• Reward. The percentage of the venture's income that is gained through completing a defined task of this type (up to a maximum amount).

Metacurrency = Defined task * Feedback * Reward.

The output of a metacurrency in this example is likely dynamic. A share of ongoing earnings produced by a venture. It could as easily be a share of production (seeds, widgets, etc.) or equity (not options, but actual equity ownership of a venture, if we can work around regulatory restrictions).

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An open source venture = Metacurrency A + Metacurrency B + Metacurrency C

For more: see the Metacurrency Project

OPEN SOURCE VENTURES

A major objective of the metacurrency project is to: create the building blocks required to construct open source ventures quickly and efficiently.

What is an open source venture?

Essentially, these ventures do much of the same things as a normal businesses do but...

• They don't have a hierarchy.  The venture is narrowly focused.  The rules by which it operates are clearly defined and self-regulating.  
• The value created is shared with the participants based on their contribution.  
• Is completely transparent (the rules for how it operates and how the rewards are allocated).

The promise of open source ventures includes:

• The ability to scale to millions of participants (far beyond any standard business)
• The capacity (once the ecosystem is established) to grow from 0 to billions in revenue in months.  
• The capacity to outcompete all traditional forms of competition regardless of how much money is invested.  

JOURNAL: The Security and Secrecy "Tax"

Wikileaks and Al Qaeda's Open Source Jihad are both open source insurgencies.

While there are obvious differences between the two, what's more interesting is how they are similar.  Namely:  as open source insurgencies both groups use systems disruption (the ability of small attacks to create outsized damage to large networks) as their means of attack.

While there are lots of ways to use systems disruption, one of the most common is to use it to impose a "tax" on the opponent's system.  However, in this form of attrition, the goal isn't moral capitulation it is systemic collapse (a loss of cohesion).

I wrote an extended analysis of a paper by the NY Federal Reserve on how a "terrorism tax" could reduce the economic equilibrium of a city back in 2004 that may be of interest.  Here's a bit of it:

A terrorism tax is an accumulation of excess costs inflicted on a city's stakeholders by acts of terrorism. These include direct costs inflicted on the city by terrorists (systems sabotage) and indirect costs due to the security/insurance/policy/etc. changes needed to protect against attacks. A terrorism tax above a certain level will force the city to transition to a lower market equilibrium (in other words:  the city will shrink economically).

Julian Assange at Wikileaks sees this tax as a "secrecy tax" (read "Global Guerrilla: Julian Assange" for more on how Wikileaks conducts its insurgency):

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

Al Qaeda's open source jihad sees this tax as a "security tax" (read "Open Source Jihad" for more on how Al Qaeda uses open source warfare):

To bring down America we do not need to strike big.  ...security phobia that is sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players and less time to launch.  Al Qaeda's Inspire e-Zine

THE OPEN SOURCE ECONOMY and METACURRENCIES

Here's an alternative to complaining about how broken the current system is (or arguing about nonsense like what "should" or "shouldn't" happen).  It's a way to create something new that can improve all of our lives.

The article below is the latest post to the Metacurrency Project.  If you are interested, please join the mailing list (you can get digests either daily or weekly if you just want to keep tabs on it). 

NOTE:  This is proving hideously difficult to explain all at once.  So, please bear with me.

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Basically, what this metacurrency project is about (at least my intent) is to find a way to rapidly build successful open source ventures (and over time: build an open source economy).  These open source ventures:

1. generate incomes for the participants ($$, yen, Gold, Euros, food, etc.),
2. automate the allocation of rewards based on contribution, and
3. don't require a corporate hierarchy/bureaucracy to manage them (which ultimately dooms every corporation to stagnation/death/inefficiency).

The short term objective of the project is to build a social network enabled Internet venture, using metacurrencies, that proves the concept.

Let's examine this in detail:

First, why focus on social network enabled Internet ventures?  They  grow very quickly, require little capital (fixed costs are low), and the tasks required to operate them are quantifiable. They are also VERY lucrative.  Further, the only true obstacle to building a successful venture of this type is a large network of people willing to advance the system.

Second, what is a metacurrency?  At the top level, metacurrencies make it easy to build a large social network that can accomplish complex tasks.  Let's deconstruct this.

A metacurrency isn't a traditional currency.  It more of a currency that awards currencies.  In other words, it's about finding automated ways to determine who makes a contribution, how much they should be rewarded for that contribution, and when they get that reward.

All ventures, at core, are a bundle of tasks that run continuously.  These tasks, in aggregate, solve the problem the venture was formed to solve.  These tasks can be decomposed into specific functions that can be accomplished by individuals or groups. The measure of whether these functions are successfully completed or not can be automated.   Further, these functions can be attached to a reward.  The combination of automated  measurement of a venture function + reward is a metacurrency (the rules of which are transparent).  

So, by extension, any venture = a bundle of metacurrencies. Some metacurrencies, like deal sourcing in Groupon's case, are venture specific. Others, like reputation and skill at a particular task, are applicable economy wide (part of the platform).  

Metacurrencies can be configured in a variety of ways.

• They can be binary = yes or no.
• They can be continuous = like a meter that measures % of max contribution at any given time.
• They can be complex, with feedback loops = ratings or completion metrics that modify the results of any single process (as in, the customer satisfaction level of this process is very high, so the value of the completed process is increased).

Where do we go with this if it works?  Here are some ideas:

• It would be possible to leverage existing metacurrencies to quickly create new ventures.
• The addition of MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) mechanics to metacurrency construction (structured randomness to some portion of the rewards) would accelerate adoption.
• Connected metacurrencies (across ventures) would make for very interesting dynamics.  i.e. local food production venture connects with the reward allocation of a coupon venture.
• Levels and status. Continual success with a metacurrency could yield advancement in skill level -- unlocking new metacurrencies with new reward structures.
• Rapid group formation that can accomplish a variety of tasks (i.e. resilient communities). 
• Etc..... 

NOTE: Welcome message for the metacurrency working group

Pretty straight forward.  It is almost the definition of a BHAG.

JOURNAL: Let's Build Some Metacurrencies

Ok.  Lots of people have asked me what they can do to move the EaaS (economy as a service) and resilient communities, along.  Here's a good way to start.

One aggressive strategy is to use metacurrencies to automate, operate, and accelerate online businesses that are owned by the participants.

Here's what I mean.  A metacurrency, in this context, is a way to put a numerical value to what each of participants in an online system does.  The more they advance the system (their performance), the more metacurrency they accumulate.  The metacurrency earned equates to an ownership stake in the company = which can be converted into cash in the standard economy.

So, if I put some time in recruiting new members, sourcing deals, adding content, adding new features, fixing bugs, etc. I earn metacurrency that advances my ownership of the company.

Every online business, is essentially a set of processes that can be logically constructed in a way that allows success of every participant to be measured automatically (to allow low cost scalability). 

If you have some ideas for a metacurrency that may work and are willing to share them with this project, let's discuss it in this group:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Metacurrency_Project/ 

Why start with the Internet business ecosystem?  How does this relate to resilience?

Simple: Cause that's where the money is.  Conquer that challenge and resilient communities will be easy.

OPEN SOURCE JIHAD

...the open source jihad is America's worst nightmare. Al Qaeda (AQAP Inspire).

Earlier this year, al Qaeda formally announced that it had adopted open source warfare (a new, extremely potent theory of 21st Century warfare that makes it possible for a large number of small autonomous groups to defeat much larger enemies) as its preferred method of conducting its insurgency against the west.  

The adoption of open source jihad led the organization to launch a new english language magazine called Inspire.  This magazine, filled with tools (software, etc.), techniques, and philosophy (on how to carry out open source jihad), demonstrated its desire to shift its role from closed leadership (of operations) to coaching small groups to act on their own.  It also led al Qaeda to make a demonstration (an attack) that could provide a plausible promise for its open source collaborators/partners.  

Systems Disruption and Parcel Bombs

To bring down America we do not need to strike big.  ...security phobia that is sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players and less time to launch.  Al Qaeda's Inspire e-Zine

To provide a plausible promise (proof that open source warfare can be successful against the enemy), al Qaeda turned to systems disruption.  Systems disruption, a major part of open source warfare theory, is a method of attack that uses a knowledge of networks to amplify the damage of the attack.  With systems disruption, even small attacks (that cost little and generate little risk to the group) can have national or global impact.  As such, it's perfect for the type of attack made by the small autonomous groups within an open source insurgency.   It also has a proven track record, in conflicts from Mexico to Nigeria.  It works.  

Al Qaeda's choice of a demonstration was to use parcel bombs (called Operation Hemorrhage -- a classic name for a systems disruption attack).  These low cost parcel bombs, were inserted into the international air mail system to generate a security response by western governments.  It worked.  The global security response to this new threat was massive.

Returns on Investment (ROIs)

Part of effective systems disruption is a focus on ROI (return on investment) calculations.  As paraphrased in Inspire:  it is such a good bargain for us to spread fear amongst the enemy and keep him on his toes in exchange of a few months of work and a few thousand bucks.  We knew that cargo planes are staffed by only a pilot and a co-pilot, so our objective was not to cause maximum casualties but to cause maximum losses to the American economy.  (this shift is a clear attempt to avoid limitations of blood and guts terrorism by adopting systems disruption as outlined in this article)

To demonstrate this ROI, Inspire listed the costs of the investment in the operation:

• Printers:  $300 each
• Nokia mobile phones:  $150 each
• Shipping and transportation:  short $$
• TOTAL COST:  $4,200

It's pretty clear that the security costs inflicted as a result of this operation are counted in the millions of dollars, making for an impressive return on investment for the operation.  ROIs from systems disruption can reach one million to one.

Given this successful demonstration attack, we should expect to se many more attacks that employ systems disruption in the future as open source jihadis adopt the method.

NOTE:  My intent with developing open source warfare, systems disruption, etc. back in 2004-6 was do what JFC Fuller did with armored warfare in the early 1930's: to develop a truly modern theory of warfare that reflected trends already in motion.  Apparently that is proving to be the case as insurgents adopt it from Nigeria's MEND to al Qaeda.  Perversely, the US gov't had a head-start on this given my presentations to the DoD/CIA/NSA and even a House Armed Services Committee appearance, but they squandered it.

LINKS: 18 NOVEMBER 2010

Some random items of interest:

• Excellent structural analysis on America's decline by Umair Haque.  Peers behind the curtain of the usual factors to get at underlying drivers.
• Microcredit meltdown in India.  Political protest shuts down repayment on $2 billion in loans.
• The academic mercenary. More evidence of moral decay.
• TSA mission creep round-up for your ranting pleasure:  Chertoff corruption -- took money from scanner companies when he advocated scanners as Homeland security chief. Ron Paul's 'American Traveler Dignity Act'  mi=8511.   TSA gropes 3 year old girl.  mi=8305  New TSA signage (funny).  mi=1536  
• A how to on P2P file sharing dead drops.  Hilarious and cool.  
• Stoned Afghan soldiers.  An oldie but a goodie.
• Cargo UAVs.  I wrote a paper on this a couple of years back.  Bruce Sterling's comment:  *The aerial truck-bomb, and the smuggler's best robot friend.
• La Familia network diagram.
• Drones on the arms smuggler menu.

JOURNAL: Dmitry Orlov on Collapse

Had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Dmitry Orlov (author of the excellent book Reinventing Collapse) last night, with my friend Steve Wardell.  Dmitry makes a compelling case that the US empire will suffer the same fate as its most hated rival, the Soviet empire, for many of the same reasons:

• Extreme dependence on the price of oil.  The Soviet's over reliance on oil was as a source of income (which collapsed in the early 80's due to a confluence of factors, hence the bankruptcy).  The US depends on it due our profligacy in its use.  As oil availability dries up (export land model, peak oil production, etc.) the US will suffer disproportionately.
• Extreme levels of spending on national security.  The paranoia that led the Soviets to overspend on national security was legendary.  The same is true with the US.  The US now spends more than the rest of the world combined on national security.  In a hyper competitive global economy it isn't absolute or historical levels of spending that matter - it's relative spending levels.
• A runaway foreign trade deficit and ballooning debt.  
• Extreme levels of corruption and a gross misallocation of economic resources.  The Soviets had insular bureaucrats and the US has bankers and financiers.
• A ballooning welfare state that it can't support (in the US's case, it's mostly ballooning health care costs -- the US's crony capitalist health care system costs 2-4x per unit of health care as compared to the rest of the developed world, while delivering health stats only rivaled by the developing world).  

While Dmitry's top level analysis is great, it's the details (from his experience with how people dealt with the economic/political/social collapse of the Soviet Union) on how Americans will cope with daily life after a collapse, that are the most entertaining/sobering.  In a nutshell, life in a US Banana Republic means:  we're going to grow lots of our own food, make our own energy, and buy most our products at flea markets.

Here's his presentation:  The Five Stages of Collapse.  Here's a quick summary:

1. Financial Collapse. Already in motion.
2. Commercial Collapse. Just started.
3. Political Collapse (a loss of faith in the political process). First part is over (the recent election in the US). Second part is going to be nasty.
4. Social Collapse. Potentially the end state or stable equilibrium point for most of the world. Everyone against everyone with points awarded by the global marketplace.
5. Cultural Collapse. Full meltdown. Global market breaks.

JOURNAL: Be unreasonable and maladjusted.

Be unreasonable. Be maladjusted.  Make the future you want it to be.  Build something new.   Some quotes worth remembering:

George Bernard Shaw: The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Martin Luther King: God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization. And then we will be able to move from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

RC JOURNAL: Accelerating the Development of Resilient Communities

One of the major attributes of resilient communities is that can locally produce most of what they need (food, energy, and products).  Needless to say, the transition to local production won't happen overnight.  Let's explore this.

Most of the efforts to increase local production, to date, have been either:

1. The result of community action.  Efforts like the transition towns movement.  
2. Development driven.  Communities that have built from the ground up with resilience in mind, i.e. agricultural urbanism.

Unfortunately, these early efforts have been sporadic and the results haven't reached what's needed to become fully resilient.  Why?  The reason is that these  efforts are being attempted early in the cycle, before the trends that make transition inevitable have fully matured.  These trends include:

• Expensive energy.  Energy costs are climbing (with occasionally spike), but they haven't reached a level that makes local production much more attractive than global production, yet.  They will.
• Technology.  The costs of producing goods locally is rapidly decreasing due to new technologies.  For example, with desktop fabrication, we are right at the cusp of a rapid increase in efficiency/capability -- the equivalent of 1980 in the personal computer industry.  
• Disruptions.  Shortages, panics, and cascading failures.  We had a taste of a big one in 2008 in the financial industry and lots of small ones.  More to come since the global system is only becoming more interconnected and unstable as time progresses.
• Economic failure/D2 (the second global depression).  There's a strong argument that we are already in the midst of a second global depression. As economic failure intensifies on the global stage (debt, default, income stratification, fraud, etc.), the need for local economic activity will intensify.
• Global guerrilla insurgencies. Low grade, crime fueled insurgencies that spread like the plague.  Think Mexico.  Shootings, kidnappings, hijackings, etc.
• There's many more (political chaos, the inevitable global pandemic, sovereign default, the disappearing middle class, etc.), but these are some of the top ones.

Fortunately, there may be another way to get resilient communities off the ground faster than waiting for the trends driving their development to become inexorable (and in the process lose many, many people to the encroaching failure).  The fastest way I can think of is to use the Internet to build a system that fosters their development (what other method can go from scratch to 500 million participants in three years).  

The system I propose is a fully functional economy built as an Internet service.  I believe that almost all of the elements need to build this, launch it, and gain widespread adoption are already available today.  Further, there are people ready to build it.  The only limitation is the funding needed to exploit the opportunity.

EaaS JOURNAL: Behavior Blocs

Here's a simple way to regularize demand and rationalize patterns of consumption (for rivalrous goods): behavior blocs.  

A behavior bloc:

• Is an opt-in service.
• Is a set of behaviors (things you do and buy) that are connected to a specific goal/objective that you aspire to.  i.e. Local food/production.  Efficient energy use.  
• Uses MMOG dynamics, social meta-currencies, and social networks to manage, measure, and reward activity that aligns with the goal.  Far, far beyond simple local currency and loyalty schemes.

The benefits of a behavior bloc within a commercial context include:

• Regularization of demand (frequency, scale, duration, etc.).  Stable targets that can be planned against.
• Can rapidly shift demand to specific goods/services that don't yet exist.
• Can disrupt existing patterns of commerce.

An economy as a service (EaaS) provides the tools that make designing, launching, and growing a behavior bloc easy.

EaaS: Non-rival Goods vs. Rivalrous Goods

Localize production.  Virtualize everything else.  JR.

This is kind of a lame post in that it doesn't break new ground.  It's a simple backgrounder.  I thought the concept needed to be aired (at least my spin on it) for those readers that hadn't seen it before. 

Here's a conceptual building block (for building an economy as a software-enabled service, EaaS).   It is the distinction between rivalrous goods/services and non-rival goods/services.  Here are some examples:

Rival goods and services:  

• physical goods such as food, consumer products, and raw materials
• personal services such as assembly line work, massage, or lawn care
• service flows such as energy, bandwidth, and water

Non-rival goods and services:

• digital goods such as product designs, music, movies, and books
• digital services (that cost nearly zero to provide on a per user basis) include most software enabled services (i.e. Web sites)
• digital information/sensor flows

As you can see, rival goods and services share a common trait.  The original purchaser suffers a tangible loss when they are used by someone else.  In contrast, non-rival goods and services can be copied endlessly without significant loss to the original purchaser (although, in some cases it can be argued that exclusive use of these goods and services offers the owner a competitive or status advantage).

Our current economy doesn't differentiate between rival and non-rival goods.  Nearly everything is sold or traded as if it is a rivalrous good, even though the transactional volume of non-rival goods is starting to dwarf the trade in rival goods.  

Something to think about.

JOURNAL: Flash Mob Dynamics

This is a fictional presentation of a flash mob that has gone awry by Tom Scott.  Worth watching.

The value in this video is its insights into the dynamics (the negative outcomes depicted are merely used to add punch to the presentation) of flash mobs.  Think in terms of how this process can be adapted for disruption (open source warfare) or for constructive ends (EaaS or Resilient Community). It's another root toolkit item.

JOURNAL: Social Incentive Structures for an EaaS

Here's a little more of what we can learn from online gaming.  Below is a short video on 7 ways games incentivize achievement by Tom Chatfield.  It's very good, give it a watch.

Simply, the incentive structures of online games are more attractive than those in our increasingly corrupt economic and social system (heads I win, tails you lose). 

Think of these techniques as part of the root toolkit for constructing an EaaS (economy as a service) that provides win-win-win outcomes for participants.

LINKS: 10 NOVEMBER 2010

Some random items of interest:

• This picture provides a contrast that is a good example of the moral decay I wrote about earlier.  The strangest thing about it is that the AIG exec was even charged with a crime.
  
  
  
  
• Tinkerers.  David Brin's graphic novel that analyzes US economic decline.  
• Nassim Taleb (aka the Black Swan guy), has an interesting graphic on fragile vs. anti-fragile structures and processes.  I think it needs a little refinement in order to have more impact, but the placement of city states vs. nation-states is right on.
• Another good graphic that sums up a deep problem in the Western world:
  
  
  

EaaS (ECONOMY as a SERVICE)

Here's something to get your mind working (whether you agree or not)...

EaaS (economy as a service) is likely to be a categorical term that you are going to hear a lot about in the not too distant future.  Why?  The EaaS is now in the adjacent possible of technological, societal, and economic development.  The current situation is begging for it to be developed.  

What is an EaaS?  In a nutshell, it is a complete economy -- soup to nuts -- as a software service.  

These new economies will...

• be bootstraps and new ventures.  Self-organizing structures.  Top down efforts, even from established social networks won't work.
• in most cases fail.  Fortunately, there will be lots of them and those that do succeed can grow  very, very quickly (scaling to hundreds of millions of participants in a matter of years). 
• be very diverse.  Lots of different rule sets will be tried (way beyond the classical *isms).
• operate within the current economy and against it at the same time.  Competition with the current economy for participants.  Opt-in to the one that suits your values.
• change the nature of immigration -- a flight to zones of connectivity.  Also, it creates the potential for 'emigration in place.'
• accelerate the build-out of resilient communities.  RCs will often be the local instantiation of the values/rules of the EaaS.
• often combine social rewards with real world rewards.
• often use the reward structures of MMOGs.
• be global.  Participants will join from within every country that offers Internet access.
• often arbitrage global legal systems (like corporations) to reduce their exposure to taxes, regulations, etc.
• eventually develop and implement technologies (and by extension wealth) at rates far, far faster than the current economy.
• likely reverse the trend towards urbanization.

JOURNAL: Do Resilient Communities Produce EVERYTHING Locally?

No.  

People within resilient communities do trade for goods and services they don't produce locally, just like we do today.  The difference is that resilient communities produce much more of what they do use locally -- particularly food, energy, and essential products.  

This local production means that resilient communities aren't completely and utterly dependent on international trade flows, the stability of the financial system, and global economic performance.  A dependence currently so profound that even a minor hiccup could cause our existing communities to shatter (or if the shock is bad enough, become feral). Further, local production means that every resilient community contains a viable local economy that can become the basis for continued prosperity even when the global economy falters (like the slow motion train wreck we are currently experiencing).  

Fortunately, almost all of the technology trends are pointing towards producing more locally.  Ride that trend.

NOTE:  One of the reasons I'm working on building new software economies is that they will come in very handy in the future as things get worse.  They make it easy for resilient communities to bootstrap each other economically.

COMPLETELY NEW ECONOMIES AS A SOFTWARE SERVICE

This is going to be one of those posts where for every 10 people that don't get it, there's one that does.  This is for that one.

____________

The scientist/philosopher Stuart Kauffman has an interesting idea (he reckons it is a law of biological systems) that he calls "the adjacent possible." The adjacent possible is essentially the set potential futures that diverge from the current path of social development or biological evolution, that can be exploited at any specific time.  Here's some more detail:

• The constraints of the time (social, technological, etc.) dictate when a potential future is possible.
• The potential futures with the most allure are those with the greatest benefits in terms of beneficial complexity, diversity, and free energy capture (self organizing potential).
• When the constraints on a new future that offers fantastic advances/benefits are eliminated (when it enters the adjacent possible), it's often 'discovered' and exploited by many people simultaneously (via new ventures, inventions, or organizations).  
• Finally, the best approach to exploiting this new future is to move incrementally and in a decentralized fashion (rather than all at once, which can be fatal).  

The reason I bring this up is that our economic and social 'adjacent possible' appears to now include complete economies and social structures delivered as software service.  These software based economies and social structures could allow:

• A plethora of new economic systems within which you can make a living (all you need to do is opt-in to the one that makes sense to you). The ability to build and experiment with new rules that both fix the increasingly dire problems with the current dominant economic system while providing new capabilities and avenues for success (new currencies, new incentive structures, new forms of status, etc.). 
• Rapid rates of innovation/improvement.  Since the rules of these systems are software based, they can evolve very quickly.  Further, some of these new structures have the potential to generate rates of improvement/innovation/wealth creation at rates an order of magnitude greater than the current system.
• Nearly costless scalability.  The infrastructure of these systems scales at a nearly costless level and the platforms envisioned can support a huge amount ecosystem diversity without much strain.

We can already see the start of some exploitation of this possible future with the rise of social networking (as in: the idea of a 550 million person social network was merely a potential future a decade ago).  However, those efforts are merely baby steps in comparison to the plans and projects now being floated by some very smart/capable people across the world (some of which I have access to).  These plans are, by themselves, a strong indicator that this potential future is now in the adjacent possible and some BIG changes are in motion.  

From what I've seen, these new efforts have the potential give global financial/crony capitalism some very healthy competition.  May the best system(s) win.  

NOTE:  This spread of this revolution won't involve protest, riots, or wars.  It will simply be an opt-in.

NOTE2:  One potential outcome of this are virtual city states.  

LINKS: 4 NOVEMBER 2010

Some random items of interest:

• Stiglitz.  The American legal system has become: heads I win, tails you lose when big money is involved.
• Valdis Krebs has some interesting analysis on how contagion spreads in incestuous financial networks.  The very same things that make oligarchies strong, makes them vulnerable.
• University of Reddit.  Open source university.  7 k members already.
• Maker cars.  3D printed Hybrid Car called the Urbee.  Designed to run on sunlight (overnight charge from solar panels), gasoline, or ethanol (200 mpg highway, 100 mpg city @ $0.02 a mile).  
• Chemistry hacking for fun and profit.  The quest for the 'legal high'.  Using a knowledge of chemistry and garage labs to produce new psycho-active drugs that aren't illegal (yet).  On the resilient community front:  this also indicates that small, local chemistry labs can potentially replace many (most?) of the industrial pharmaceuticals currently consumed if needed.
• Tank-a-bank.  How to use flash mobs to take down a bank.  GG thinking.  2 million members in a Facebook group taking this type of action in response to insults like TARP would have done much more than anything the Tea Party has accomplished.
• Here's a very interesting interview with Ed Catmull, the President of Pixar.  In it, he explains his approach to managing creative teams to produce stellar results over the long term.  Really amazing stuff.  I particularly liked 1) his focus on team health as the best indicator of project success/failure, 2)  the need to keep projects at the edge of chaos, 3) how peer support can fix stuck projects, 3) complete transparency as a way to eliminate distrust and group dysfunction, 4) his efforts to change up the review process to circumvent selfish behavior (withholding information to avoid embarrassment or show weakness), 5) the belief that real creativity in big projects is a team function, 6) it's better to restart projects than to push forward to release a mediocre one, and 7) his belief that it is better for a manager to fix mistakes than to prevent them (the corollary to this is that managers should expect to be surprised by new information at meetings).  There's lots more. 
• The microfinance trap.  At the end of the day, it's still just debt.  The only innovation being that we learned how to get even more people hooked on it.